She looked steadily at the weapon still gripped in her hand. Its draw had been formidable but not overwhelming, and its short stature was perfect for firing from horseback. She walked slowly to retrieve the arrow that she had ruined. With a careful examination she was pleased that it was not beyond repair, but she knew there was still much work to do.
She knew the sword called the Five Elements would claim the warrior Arkthar as its wielder, and that her father's rhythm fit well the long metal staff. In her left hand she felt the unstrung potential of the splendid bow and knew that it was hers. Three weapons, three people, and three ranges, her instincts rang true.
She would once again draw from the worms, this time not to weave garments that shield the wearer from the elements. Protection would come from the bowstring she would weave to harness and tame the power of the northern plains.
With the men working on her father's new blade, she would have all the time needed to master this nomadic skill.
For the next moon's passing, my days were spent with Mah Lin within the cavern's forge. I was like the midwife's assistant aiding the birth of living steel.
The embryo began as a small, cold square conglomeration of steel. Its origin was both old and distant, for this was the last remnants of the ore the monk called
wootz
. This was the last offering of this temple, miserly saved from the sands of time and brought from the homeland of the Bodhidharma. It was a layered and twisted mixture of properties that yielded weapons without rival. It was refined to liquid in a cauldron of living flame the priest called “crucible steel.” As if replying to my superstitions he said, “Not the tool of witches, Arkthar, think of this ancient cauldron simply as your Holy Grail.”
As the bellows pumped with the action of the water, liquid poured from my body. Mah Lin laughed and told me that I was fortunate not to be pumping the bellows by hand.
“Save your sweat for the hammer, Arkthar, for when your body dances to the rhythm of this monastery's ageless song.”
From the coals Mah Lin drew out the white-hot cube of metal with the tongs held in his left hand and placed it on the anvil. With a small hammer in his right hand he struck, and sparks flew. His blows were my guide as I hovered over the steel with the heavy long-handled sledge. When he struck, I struck. Where he struck, I struck. I followed his rhythm and his direction, and we hammered until the color of the metal dulled and was reburied among the white glowing coals.
Again and again we heated and struck, and when it lengthened he held the chisel for me to pound. Cut now and bent down, he folded it back upon itself, back to the beginning, back to cube, back to the fire, and back to the anvil. When he was satisfied that our day's work was complete, he would set the lengthening steel back to the coals to wait for our morning return, and then the work would begin anew. This was the snail speed progress of our first week.
Over time the shape of Mah Lin's blade took form. It was shorter by half then the Five Element Sword, and its edge was two sided. Running down the middle and tapering into the sharp tip was a groove. With monastic knowledge as his foundation, the hammering and shaping continued.
With the final hammerings, the shape and nature of the flying sparks also changed. They were smaller and brighter, and when the hammer struck they flew a greater distance, they became more animated themselves with the anticipation of the birth of blade. The shadowed darkness of the cavern forge was as a womb, the rhythmic clang of hammer and anvil was like the body's rhythm of birth, stopping only while the steel was in the heat and starting up again when it was drawn out, like the primal work of contraction.
One more quench when it glowed with the precise color, and it was formed enough for the grinding of edge to begin. Looking from the bottom where the steel was thick, he showed me its two shades. The hard wrapped by the soft was clearly visible in the cross section, as were the folds that layered the blade several thousand strong.
As I was honing the blade with the fine black sand, Mah Lin spoke.
“For a blade to live it must be as life, a circle. We are born toothless, bald, wrinkled, muttering, incontinent, and helpless. If we are lucky to live long enough, old age brings us back to where we started. The metal of the blade started in the black sands with which you now polish, and soon it will meet the clay from where all life began.”
I set the shining blade where Mah Lin took it and coated it painstakingly with the reddened clay he had been mixing. Thicker in the middle and hair thin at its edge, he explained that the clay controls the cooling rate of the final and most important quench.
When it had hardened it was put once more to coal and drawn forth in the darkness of the cavern. It glowed white red and then disappeared sputtering into the water trough, leaving in its wake only sound, steam, and darkness. The clay flaked off in the water that boiled violently, and with the final and finest polishing it was an instrument to behold. Its haft was given a rounded oaken handle, simple at first glance, but it was crafted to fit perfectly into the hollow steel staff forged to become its permanent home.
In the light of late afternoon we walked home, filthy once more from our day's exertion. What we had created was a spear, a horse cutter, and a walking staff all in one. Near the end of its first hollowed chamber, I noticed a small round hole, and Mah Lin smiled when I asked him about this feature. He replied only, “I like to hear the music of my movement, and when two must fight as one, my position will be heard.”
It had been an arduous but productive time, and I had learned much from the hard lessons of the forge. We saw Selah running to us from a distance, and she reached us before we were halfway home. She begged to see it, like a child wanting to see a new toy. She felt its weight and cast an educated eye along the length of its blade, passing it back to the monk she said, “Show me.”
He sprinted toward a grove of the bamboo whose structure had inspired the shaft. The metal was in full spin as he approached them, and as the wind passed over the hole, his weapon sung with his movements like a flute. The blade severed the thickest, and before the trunk could reach the ground, the butt of the shaft had sent it skyward. From there to the next he moved without stopping, leaving in his wake only hollow stumps protruding from the rich black earth.
We continued onward to our home. I looked to see him walking with his child, and he seemed like a man as old as time, his walking aided by the staff that carried him. But the decimated stand of severed hollow trunks spoke otherwise.
When we entered the house to the smell of our dinner, Selah quickly removed something from her tunic. She placed the perfectly fitted leather sheath that she had made over her father's naked blade. She seemed like an aunt that wraps a woven bonnet around the head of a new baby and welcomes the newest family member home.
The priest and I saw the strung bow on the table beside a quiver of arrows. Mah Lin smiled at his daughter and said, “I see we have all been busy.”
He smiled again when he saw the black feathered fletch of the arrow she had repaired and whispered, “It seems even your bird has something of value to contribute. Give him a special morsel to express my deepest gratitude.”
Mah Lin was well pleased with the weapon he had created. He seemed tireless now in practice and peerless in the execution of its technique. We trained side by side in the shadow of the wooden cross, and vigorously sparred at the closing of the day. My shortened wooden sword was no match for the long blade of Mah Lin, but when I bridged the gap I could do some damage at close quarters. I discovered that the sound of the monk's bladed staff gave me insight into its movements and intentions. I was learning to listen within the heat of battle, learning to listen from within.
In the softened light of dusk as the three of us walked towards our home, Mah Lin asked, “What speaks to your soul from these sacred grounds?” I looked around and thought of many things, for every living thing upon the earth now seemed to have a voice.
I cast the food upon the surface of the pond at the entrance, and listened as the fish responded. I thought of ant, hen, and bird, of briar, and of oak, and I heard once more the raven call my name. The liyu were gone now, retreated gently to the solace of the depths. I followed the approaching wind as it descended like the coal black bird. From the rustle of distant leaves it swooped toward me along the ground. I felt it dance around me briefly, its parting touch rippled quickly across the water, and then like the fish, it too had vanished.
In the silence of its wake, I heard the flower of the pond speak clearly of my journey. I had arrived here broken, covered by the dark mire of my own ignorance. Knowing neither purpose nor destiny, I was drawn up by the sun. Now finally I am unfolding upon the surface, opening myself to the light of universal creation.
Selah and Mah Lin watched me quietly from the doorway as I listened to the world around me. I wanted to tell them all that I had heard, and so reached down and plucked the lotus from the cold pond waters. I held it gently between my fingers and let its splendor be my voice.
Time was lost in the peaceful silence of my answer, and, in truth, I do not know how long we lingered there. Perhaps a moment or perhaps a lifetime's passage, and it mattered not at all. I did eventually return the blossom to the pond, and the monk spoke gently to his daughter. “Bring it, Selah, its time has arrived.” With that his daughter went into the house and on return carried with her the Sword of Five Elements.
Mah Lin spoke as Selah strapped the sword and sheath upon my back. “Arkthar, you are not the first to speak the sermon of the lotus. The Five Elements has chosen you, and you, in turn, have chosen it. Wear it well, for now you belong to each other.”
I knew the significance of this presentation. Simultaneously I drew the long sword from my back and the short wooden one from my waist. I held them before me as a Celtic cross and bowed to the priest and to Selah. As my weapons separated I saw the blade of my old world in my left, and the blade of my new one in my right, and I began to move.
In the twilight my body traced the rhythms of wood and steel, and a song of old and new united rang out over the ancient grounds. I flowed freely in the ways of Celtic warrior and warrior monk. Mah Lin pulled his daughter closer as I moved. At times I followed and at times I led the edges of oak and metal, and in time I was spent, and drew breath deeply form the world around me.
The short weapon slipped easily into my waist, but the Five Elements was a different story. The atmosphere was still charged with the heavy tone of the honor that Mah Lin had just bestowed upon me. The problem was twofold, I had never worn a sword upon my back, and nobody had shown me how to return it to its sheath. For the next long minute I began a spastic dance of twist reach bend and fumble, all in a frantic effort to get the blade back into its scabbard.
Finally, Selah stepped behind me, guiding the metal tip deftly into the opening. The blade glided smoothly down into the sheath, disappeared, and clicked home, but not before their laughter had shattered the solemn occasion. Selah with eyes dancing whispered gently in my ear, “Since this sword has now become your wife, you should strongly consider improving the quality and smoothness of this operation,” and her meaning did not escape me.
For me the Way of Two Swords had been born, and I with diligence would work to master it.
The commander's passage home was as rapid as the siege was lingering. All stops were brief, made only to resupply and keep moving. His mounted bear-clad frame had become an ever present incentive for his men to hasten an end to this campaign. At all times now he remained distant and detached, and for this blessing there were no complaints. His descent from the frigid highlands mirrored his downward journey into the cold and solitary world of madness.
He had lost over one thousand soldiers, few of whom he could call by name. Such was war. The loss of the siege weapons lightened their return march, and for this too, his men were guardedly grateful. He was no longer concerned about what the emperor might think, in part, because he thought him weak and in part because he brought a gift of epic proportions. It was a gift that would enshrine both their places in history.
His troops were now ruled only by fear, both his and theirs. At night when the weary soldiers slept or guarded the tent that sheltered the rolled up carpet of siege, he hid within his own tent and conversed with the head of his vanquished enemy. Volume and intensity rose with each jar of liquor consumed. Clutching the rebel's hair with his left hand, he thirsted to hold the head of the monk in his right. Until that end was met, there would be no rest.
The men were not in good spirits even though their mission was nearing its end, tempers flared and fists flew. They had nothing to show for their work except the imagined glory that their commander seemed to wallow in. Even his young page, formerly innocent and good-natured, had grown bitter and cynical over the past year. It seemed that despair hovered over them and followed their return like some monstrous black bird.
They passed quickly over sights that were appreciated on their trek to battle. Now the lush beauty of the lowlands was barely noticed; more testimony that siege warfare steals humanity from the soul of its executioners. The men that returned to the capital after so long away now resembled those that had left in outward appearance only. As fast as their homeward journey was, news of their return traveled even faster.
The citizens of the city lined the streets as they entered the main gates. The bear-clad commander rode at the forefront. His horse was still skittish to the bear's touch, terrified still of claw on equine flanks. The commander seemed to infect any that stared too long, with dread and desolation. All eyes were respectfully averted, save for two. The commander's horse was struck by them, and rose in fear at their icy black touch. Its oblivious rider simply grappled to regain the animal's composure and once balance was restored, moved on.