The Hidden Fire (Book 2) (19 page)

“You don’t have to do that all alone,” said Lerica.  Kyric had
just begun his afternoon session with his new sword.

“I’m not on duty right now if you want a sparring partner.”

Kyric went and got the practice weapons and the nut helmets, and
he was sorry as soon as they began.  Without hesitation she launched a fleche
attack, lightning quick, the circular pivot saving him by only a hair’s
breadth.  His counterblow cut only the air as she lightly leapt away.

She had been taking lessons for years, in the linear style of course,
and if she lacked anything in skill she made up for it in raw speed.  He could
only fend off her attacks by giving ground, and if she backed him up against
anything he was in trouble.  The worst part came when he tried to attack.  She
would dodge his stroke then nip into the opening with a quick thrust, and this
was maddening because she represented everything that Aiyan was teaching him
not to do — waiting for attacks and using linear movement — and also because
she was just so damn fast.

“Sorry,” she said when they were done.  “I’m used to a lighter
sword.”

To whom was she apologizing, he wondered.  Herself?

He bowed and mumbled, “Good match,” partially out of politeness,
but mostly to conceal his seething frustration.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.

He managed to nod and say, “Uh-huh,” as he ducked away.  He ran
straight to Aiyan to rail about his own ineptitude and the unfairness of being
slow, finishing with, “And my reach is much longer than hers and I still can’t
touch her.  She’s too quick.”

Aiyan laughed.  “This will be good for you.  You will have to
learn to move before she does.”  He put away the book he had been writing in. 
“For now, try mirroring her.  This is an important part of our way of
fighting.  You can’t win a fight in the mirror.”

“So I try to match everything she does exactly?”

“No, not exactly.  Only enough to reflect what she’s doing.”

When he tried it the next day Lerica stopped and said, “Are you
trying to be cute?”

“No.  I’m trying not to get hit.”

She took it as a challenge and pressed him hard.  He didn’t
exactly stymie her, but the session went better for him.  He discovered that if
he lunged at the same time as she, his longer reach would give him the first
touch.  But she didn’t lunge again after it worked a second time, and in the
end those were the only hits he landed on her.

He knew what his problem was — his head was too full of tactics
and he wasn’t empty.  In archery, and with the weird too, he was alone with
himself, connected only to the Unknowable.  With sword fighting he felt
connected to the other person, and this threw him somehow.  And there was
another thing.  He hadn’t been able stand in the eternal moment since the day
he shot Stefin Vaust.  He had begun to wonder if he could only achieve it when
life or death hung in the balance.

The winds were light the next day and the afternoon surprisingly
warm.  The moment came before his sparring match with Lerica had gone very
far.  He moved before he knew he had, not knowing what would come next even as
it happened.

They were already close.  He stepped forward with his left as she
stepped with her right and they came toe to toe, swords crossed and blocked as
he took hold of her wrist with his off hand and she grasped his at the same
time.  His intuition may have been to use his size and strength to throw her,
as Aiyan had often done to him, but as they locked swords so did they lock
eyes, and the eternal moment came unbidden as he fell into her dark gaze.

It was like peering into the depths of a silent forest where a
shadow creature moved behind a grey mist.  When the creature looked at him, he
knew it was her.  And he knew that somehow she was in the moment with him.

They continued to fight, but it had become a dance of give and
take, a rhythmic flow of movements one into another without end.  Neither he
nor she attacked or defended, and yet each of them did both.  Anchored by a
connection they could feel, the momentum of each step, each cut, each parry,
carried naturally into the next, and the dance was all they knew.  The landing
or deflection of strikes became meaningless.  They were lost in the grace of
the unknowable.

The spell was broken by the sounding of eight bells, the end of
the afternoon and beginning of the first dog watch.  Lerica suddenly looked
embarrassed.  This time it was her turn to hurry away muttering something under
her breath.  Kyric turned to find that Aiyan had been watching them, tight
lipped with his jaw set.  He ducked back into the companionway before Kyric could
say anything.

The four of them dined together as usual, and Lerica’s mood had
certainly changed in the hours since their moment on deck.  She was all smiles,
and laughed easily, but hardly said more than a few words.  She had no trouble
meeting Kyric’s eye, catching it in fact every time she raised her glass.  When
he went out to walk the deck after eating, she followed, catching up with him in
the lamplight near the water barrel.

She walked once around the ship with him before she asked quietly,
“What happened this afternoon?  When I looked into your eyes I felt like . . .
I don’t know.  Was it some kind of magic?”

“It was only eternity.”

She smiled.  “It didn’t seem that long.”

“Because it exists outside of time.”  He stopped and let the
breeze wash over him.  “Try to remember how it felt.  I would like to know.”

She clutched the rail and looked east, to where six bright stars
were rising, the constellation known as The Hummingbird.  “I was there, and you
were there . . . and I wasn’t afraid of the future because it felt like this
day would last a thousand years.  I didn’t want that feeling to end.”

She turned to face him.  “Can you do it again, right now?”

“I can try,” he said.  “Come stand in the lantern light.”

“I have a better idea.”

She led him to her cabin.  He didn’t know what he expected,
something more nautical, he reckoned.  The sabre and the crossbow hanging next
to the door was no surprise, but opposite that stood an altar carved from a
tree trunk.  The sharp scent of cedar rushed past him.  She began lighting
candles — nice ones, made of wax — a dozen atop the altar and a dozen more in
wall sconces, and the cabin came to life.

An intricate pattern of teeth and claws lay imbedded in the altar. 
A tall ceremonial drum stood in one corner.  On another wall hung a giant hoop
draped in feathers, held together with pieces of antler and dried sinews. 
Above her bunk, a hundred woven braids of grass swung with the lilt of the
ship, making a sound like leaves in the wind.

He waited for her to finish with the candles, glad that she didn’t
feel the need for chat, just to fill the silence.  When she stood still, he
stepped close to her and looked into her eyes.

They were lovely.  No wonder he had fallen into them.  He gazed
deeper, but the timeless moment never came.  Then, somehow, she was in his arms
and he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, not frantic and desperate
and pawing like in the slave camp, but slow and soft.  Kyric was shocked at how
easy it was, as if they had been doing this for years.

He didn’t know how long they stood like that, but they managed to
find the edge of the bed and sat there intertwined, Lerica biting him gently on
the neck and he kissing her breasts though her cotton chemise.  Then she stood
and began to calmly undress, with a cool look in her eyes like they were only
going swimming together.  It occurred to Kyric that she had done this many
times and that he had not.  But when at last their flesh met beneath the bedsheets
there was shared knowing, and they moved as they had with the swords.

He had come to think of her
as a hard girl, tough as a sailor, headstrong, and a little vicious at times —
the kind of woman who could endure the torment of captivity without buckling. 
So he was surprised by her tenderness, the sweetness of her kiss, and the way
she yielded to him, wanting him to take the lead in the dance.

He awoke to the ringing of a bell, silently cursing the way it
sounded like the bell in the slave camp.  No wonder he hadn’t slept well since
returning to
Calico
.

Lerica stirred.

“Five bells,” he said, “that’s two-thirty, right?”

“Mmm, yes,” murmured Lerica, snuggling against him, “An hour and a
half till my watch begins.”

“Maybe I should go back to my cabin.”

“You can if you want to, but there’s no secrets on a ship this
small.”

He sat up and dug his shirt out of a pile of clothing.  “It’s just
that the captain of the ship happens to be your uncle.”

Aiyan pretended to be asleep when he returned to their cabin, and
didn’t say anything about his late night as they dressed for breakfast, not
even a knowing look.  But after they had eaten he said, “My back feels well
enough to continue your training.  You will practice with me today.”

If Kyric sparked before they finished their warm-up stretch, he
caught fire when they started in earnest.  His slides went deeper, his cuts
faster and harder, his parries more precise, and his timing was perfect.  He
felt like he could do anything.  He could focus sharply on the sword work,
feeling his connection to Aiyan strongly, and still be aware of what was
happening on the ship all around him.  At one point, when Aiyan had got behind
him and tried to sweep his legs out from under him with the flat of his sword, Kyric
leaped high out of intuition, spinning in midair and nearly catching Aiyan with
a counterstroke.

The easy smile that Aiyan always had when they practiced may have
brightened a little, but he said, “We don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“We don’t jump.  We always keep our feet on the ground.”

He placed his hands on his hips.  “Perhaps you’re ready to think
about something more today.”  His lessons seldom included any kind of
explanation, but he always stood like that when he had something to say.

“Not only can you move first in anticipation of attack, but you
can move in such a way as to drawn the type of attack you desire.

“This is not the same as the
trick of showing an opening, then being ready with a surprising counter when
your enemy attacks.  Even with the little time that you’ve trained in the Way
of the Flame, I know that you have begun to feel the connection with your
opponent.  You are learning that the connection is physical, even if you never
make contact.  In time you’ll learn that this is a tie that can be seen in the
mirror, and that even as you reflect your opponent, you can force him to
reflect you.”

Lerica didn’t follow him on deck that night.  Sure, she had been
cool with him in front of the crew, but hadn’t she given him the eye all though
dinner?  In fact, he realized, they had chatted away without thought of Aiyan
or Ellec the whole time.

The wind had begun to rise and Pallan ordered the watch to shorten
sails.  Kyric had heard that girls were different, that they didn’t necessarily
want to do it every night.  But he was going to find out before he returned to
his cabin and to Aiyan, who instead of giving lessons in Cor’el, now had Kyric
teaching Baskillian to
him
.

When he rapped, Lerica cracked the door, then she opened it wide. 
Her hair fell loose past her shoulders, and she was dressed in a very short and
very tight robe of black silk.  A dozen candles cast a glow over the room, and
the air hung heavy with incense.  She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him
in.  Silk was soft, but she was softer.

A little later they crossed
a squall line.  The ship heaved, popping the porthole open, and all the candles
went out in a blast of wind and rain.  So they went by touch alone, tossed in
the dark, with some pleasant surprises and Lerica giggling.

The next morning when practice was done and they sat in the shade
of the foresail, Kyric asked Aiyan, “Tell me more about this knowing of
moments.”

He tugged at his chin.  “This is the most difficult weird to teach
anyone, and not all who try to learn this succeed.  It involves listening to
silence, which believe me can be frightening.  And even though our way is a
discipline, the feel and the names of the moments are not the same for
everyone.  Sometimes you don’t discover the name until the moment is upon you. 
Strangely enough, practicing an art can help open this door.”

“An art?  Like painting?”

“Yes.  Or drama, or making paper flowers, or what have you.  My
master played the flute.”

“What do you do?”

Aiyan cleared his throat, looking out to sea.  “I write poetry.”

Kyric couldn’t help but grin.  “You do?  Can I read some of it?”

“No.”

At midday, after Ellec had checked local noon against ship time,
he put the helm over and had the mainsail raised to run on a broad reach to the
south-southeast.  He explained.

“This course will be a good test of the charts.  If they’re accurate,
and I am the navigator I think I am, we should sight The Turtle in about three
weeks.  From there we will steer due south until we cross the latitude of
Mokkala, then we simply use the unnamed meridian stars to follow the parallel
eastward.”