Authors: Deborah Chester
Caelan’s
hands were trembling. He sat on them so the other man would not see, and told
himself to stop this. He could not tear himself apart every time, not if he was
to survive this ordeal.
It
was the fault of
sevaisin.
If he’d only remembered to break the joining before
he thrust the final blow, it wouldn’t have been so bad.
Even
now, he thought he could hear an echo of the sword, still calling to him, still
singing in his blood. Beneath his wretchedness, he knew something even more
alarming: he had been born to battle. The weapons knew it. That’s why they had
called to him so strongly all his life.
What
am I?
he
wondered.
He
had no answer to that question, but he understood why he could not do well with
the fake weapons in practice. They were not real. They could not speak to him.
The
third victor came in, breathing hard and looking exhausted. He drank water, but
scarcely had he dropped the dipper back into the pail than the door opened and
the guards entered with the final lots.
“No
free-for-all?” the black man asked. His voice was smooth and deep. He alone
seemed completely fresh.
“Not
today. The emperor doesn’t like them.”
Caelan
reached in the tub. His tag was numbered three.
“One
and two, step lively.”
The
black man and the one who’d just arrived went out. The door was slammed shut
for what seemed like forever.
An
hour passed, perhaps an eternity. Finally the guards came for Caelan and took
him up the dark ramp for the last time. He did not know who his opponent was to
be until the door opened and he was shoved out into the sunlight. He saw the
black man holding both a dagger and a broadsword, waiting some distance away in
the center of the largest ring.
Caelan
had the same weapons. He could not handle both at once, so he tucked the dagger
into the waist of his loincloth and settled a two-handed grip on the
broadsword. The weapon was incredibly heavy and long. Blunt-tipped, it was made
for hacking, not thrusting. Not until he tried to lift it into readiness did
Caelan realize how exhausted his shoulders were. His arms felt leaden.
But
the weapons were already hot and alive. He could feel them against his skin,
humming with purpose. But to enter
sevaisin
again was too draining. It took tremendous amounts of
energy. He was not used to so much contact. He did not believe he could protect
himself if he needed to.
He
crossed the ring while the crowd roared and stamped its feet. They were crying,
“Amarouk! Amarouk!” over and over. Caelan realized that must be his opponent’s
name.
The
black man’s eyes were steady and alert. His muscles rippled beneath his skin as
he raised the broadsword, but he let Caelan come to him.
Caelan
knew this meant he would have no time to get set. He knew also that it was
Amarouk’s right. The man was already the favorite, marked as today’s victor.
Knowledge of that shone in Amarouk’s face, but he was far from cocky.
He
crouched slightly, settling his haunches the way a great cat might before
springing.
Caelan
stopped in his tracks, slightly too far away for combat, and heard the cheers
change to boos. Caelan barely heeded them. Something felt wrong to him. A
broadsword was a weapon of war, requiring a shield or heavy armor for
protection. Two seminaked men hacking at each other would cut each other to
ribbons. What was the dagger for? To finish off the business?
Orlo
had not trained him for this. The weapons were both humming, but not in
harmony. They did not belong together. He could not do this.
Abruptly,
Caelan turned and flung his broadsword away. It went spinning through the air,
sunlight flashing along its blade as it landed with a thud and little puff of
dust at the far side of the ring.
A
hush fell over the crowd, broken by chatter here and there. People were
gripping each other’s arms and pointing.
Even
Amarouk’s eyes widened in surprise.
Caelan
didn’t care. His own doubts were spinning in his mind, calling him a madman and
worse. He closed everything away and sought
severance.
With a snap, everything was
cut off. He entered the coldness, isolating himself, and waited for Amarouk to
strike first.
The
black man didn’t like it. His expression changed from surprise to annoyance,
then to fleeting satisfaction. Circling, he closed in on Caelan, who circled
with him, dagger held loose but firmly, wrist taut.
With
a yell, Amarouk lifted the broadsword with both hands, swinging it in an arc as
he lifted, the whole motion smooth and correct. He was clearly a master of the
weapon, but even as he swung Caelan’s senses were alert and prepared.
The
sword’s motion grew slower and slower. Caelan ducked and lunged, coming up
under Amarouk’s arm. His dagger thrust hard, but Amarouk shifted away barely in
time.
The
dagger tip skidded through hide, slicing along a rib without doing any real
damage.
But
the blood splattered red on the sand just the same. The crowd shouted and
groaned, all in the same breath.
Fury
flared in Amarouk’s eyes. He swung again, and again Caelan dodged the
broadsword, dancing too quickly for it to reach him. With an oath, Amarouk
tossed the unwieldy weapon away, eliciting a cheer from the crowd.
He
drew his own dagger, and Caelan’s grew hot in his fist. The blade was suddenly
screaming through him, driving
severance
away just as Amarouk came at him with a bloodcurdling
yell.
Caught
half off-guard by the changes inside himself, Caelan barely met Amarouk’s
charge. They slashed and parried and circled. Amarouk leaped, kicking at Caelan’s
head. When Caelan dodged, Amarouk drove his dagger at Caelan’s chest. Caelan
twisted and blocked with his own weapon. The two blades locked, and they were
straining against each other with all their strength, feet digging deep into
the sand, arms trembling between them.
Then
Amarouk reached out and gripped Caelan’s hair.
The
physical contact brought
sevaisin
with a jolt that enabled Caelan to thrust him back.
Amarouk went sprawling, still clutching a plug of Caelan’s blond hair in his
fist.
Caelan,
acting without thought, broke one of the principal rules of short knife
fighting: he flung his dagger at Amarouk.
The
blade hit its target and went through the meaty part of Amarouk’s arm, pinning
it to the ground. The black man screamed and writhed over, pulling out the
dagger with a grunt of agony. Blood ran down his arm in a crimson stream, and
he raised the dagger in his other hand.
Caelan
ran for the nearest broadsword and scooped it up just as the dagger flew past
him harmlessly and thunked into the wooden wall.
Caelan
left it quivering there and swung the sword around just as the second dagger
came at his head. In
severance,
Caelan danced in the coldness, watching the dagger
slow in midair as his senses heightened. He swung the sword and deflected the
dagger. It went spinning harmlessly aside and landed on the ground.
Now
Amarouk was weaponless and hurt. Pressing his injured arm to his side, blood
still streaming, the man backed up from Caelan’s advance, looking from side to
side as he tried to locate the remaining sword.
Caelan
charged him, but Amarouk dodged and scrambled on his hands and knees to grab
the sword. Lifting it just in time, sand flying from the blade, he blocked
Caelan’s swing. Steel rang against steel, sliding until their grips locked.
They
strained against each other, well matched in strength; then Amarouk twisted and
managed to sling Caelan around into the wall.
Caelan’s
shoulder ached from the impact, but rather than try to regain his balance, he
slid down into a crouch and slashed at Amarouk’s legs.
The
man danced back, but not fast enough. The blade sliced through meat and tendon,
and suddenly Amarouk was down. The thews in his neck corded up like ropes as he
tried to heave himself back up. He made it, kneeling with blood streaming
around him, and screamed obscenities at Caelan.
Their
swords clashed with a jolt that traveled up Caelan’s wrists. Caelan’s own flesh
wound had reopened, and the blood and sweat trickling down his arm made the
hilt slippery. He broke first, stepping back on his rear foot, then swung
again. Now he did at last find the rhythm of the weighty sword. But even on his
knees Amarouk refused to give up. He met blow for blow, the sword blades
ringing out mightily again and again.
“Kill!”
the crowd roared, on its feet now, fists shaking, voices screaming. “Kill!
Kill! Kill!”
And
as he fought the valiant Amarouk, a corner of Caelan’s mind went back long ago
to something his father had once said when trying to teach him a lesson in
healing.
Opening
his kit, Beva withdrew a copper scalpel and held it up so the firelight could
flash along the burnished blade. “This is a tool with which to heal. It can
assist life. It can also take life. Sometimes I must cut away that which is
diseased and damaged in order to save life. Sometimes I must take life in order
to grant mercy.”
He
ran his finger along the blunt edge of the blade. “Safety.”
Then
he ran his finger along the sharp edge. Blood welled across his fingertip, and
he flicked it at the wall, leaving tiny crimson splatters. “Danger. Everything
in the universe has two sides, the
aul
and the
zin,
the brightness and the shadow, the good and the evil.
That is how balance is maintained.”
Caelan
sighed. He had no desire to listen to one of his father’s lectures.
“It
is not necessary to walk among evil, boy, in order to fully understand good. By
looking into good, you will find the evil. Do not go seeking more.”
Caelan
frowned. As usual when talking to his father, he felt there were more riddles
than answers. “So you’re saying that with every wrong committed, good is lost.
Until one day the balance shifts and it cannot be regained at all.”
It
was Beva’s turn to sigh. “No, boy. That is not what I’m saying.”
“I
don’t understand.”
“In
healing, sometimes we take the disease and turn it upon itself. It will kill
itself when properly guided. There are many ways to the desired end. Many
journeys, none of them more right than another, but all the same in result if
needed.”
Within
the vision, Caelan frowned. This no longer felt like a memory. They had never
had this conversation. His father had not said these words, yet Beva’s face
hung suspended in his mind. Beva’s voice rang in his thoughts.
“You’re
saying I must kill this man,” Caelan said, far
away from the battle his
body still fought with Amarouk.
“You,
Father? The peace lover?”
“Ultimate
severance
,” Beva whispered. “The
taking with the mind. The creation of balance by first walking through shadows
and out again into the light.”
Caelan
felt split inside, as though he were losing his reason. The coldness was more
pervasive than any he’d ever felt before, as though he’d become frozen to the
marrow. His consciousness was gone. What was he doing? Fighting? Dying? He was
lost to everything except this moment before his father.
“Don’t
make me a saint, boy,” Beva said. “I have touched evil and walked with it. I
have dipped my hands in it. I have drunk from the shadow, then left it, returning
to the light of reason and sanity, back to doing good for humanity, back to
life and the saving of it.”
“No,”
Caelan whispered, horrified. If it were true, that made his father’s cruelty
even less understandable than before. “No, you can’t be telling the truth. If
you did that, you would have understood me. You would know why I wanted to go
my own way.”
“Your
way is toward death. You stand there now, boy. Just as I warned you.”