Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (12 page)

“If you can’t judge a philosophy by its followers, how can you judge it?”

We’d had this discussion before. I tried to turn it aside by saying, “What do you think we are, Moon Isle Spirits? They’re insane. They pervert the Warrior-Saint’s teachings; we don’t. The White Mountain disapproves of them. We want to be the best we can be. We want to help the poor, the defenseless—”

“You want to be the hero of a feast-singer’s song, Rifkin.”

I almost hit her. I said “Sure.”

She took my hand and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean we should part like this. Rifkin, if you ever come to Istviar, find me.”

“Find you? Just ask the first person I meet where Kiyan lives?”

She laughed and nodded.

I realized then that I would never see her again, that our lives had taken very different paths. I laughed with her. “When I come to Istviar, I’ll ask for Kiyan.”

My nine months on the White Mountain were much like the previous years in Loh, except that our classes lasted all day. We studied in good weather and bad, from early morning to late evening. And one morning I awoke to see Tchanin kneeling beside my sleeping mat with an uncharacteristic smile upon his face.

“Good morning, Rifkin Student. Today, if your spirit proves itself, you will become Rifkin Priest.”

I nodded carefully. I had wondered when the time would come and what the test would be. Once, a few years after Tchanin came, I had asked when I would become a Priest of the Warrior-Saint. Tchanin had answered, “When you no longer ask.”

I knew nothing of what to expect. Tchanin gave me no clues, so I stood and dressed in my student’s pants and shirt, then followed Tchanin into the hall. He paused by the toilet, so I made use of it. He led me to the dining room, where rice and vegetables were being served. I ate sparingly. When I was done, he took me back through the hall to the practice room—a large white-walled room with smooth, teak floors—where we studied and sparred when the weather was very bad and our teachers thought to spare us or themselves from wind or rain or snow.

The six Master Priests sat cross-legged in a black line at the far end of the room. A woman in a student’s tan uniform stood facing them, and even from behind I recognized Vayil by her curly hair and her perfect posture. Tchanin gestured for me to stand beside her. He sat with his fellow Master Priests. Priest Binnuth nodded to each of us. “Greetings, students of the Art. A place awaits you among the Priests.” My heart leaped with pride. I suspect that Vayil’s did too. Binnuth added, “Which of you will take it, and which of you will leave us?”

I swallowed. Vayil had always been First Student. Though I had defeated her in a few practice bouts, my victories had been rare. Binnuth smiled as if she had made a joke and said, “That is what we are here to learn. Sit, now.”

We meditated for some time, but my mind would not calm. I thought about becoming a Priest and I wondered what I must do to succeed. Vayil could return to Loh and take her place in the Searich clan. They would be proud to have her back. I would be laughed at for my failure. If I was lucky, one of the fishing families would give me the least place on a boat. And I would take home the least share of the catch. And perhaps I would soon give half of my share for happiness milk, and when I had drunk enough, I would go for a swim like Mima did, late one evening when the sea was still.

When Binnuth clapped her hands, Vayil and I rose. Something in Vayil’s face said that she had not quite calmed herself either. I think it was then that I understood how very much she wanted to earn a place of her own, a place that no one could say she had been given because of her family.

We did all of the thirteen traditional patterns together. First Pattern was difficult, even though Tchanin had taught it to me during my first week of instruction in the Art. It consisted of a few of the most basic techniques, but because they were so basic, they should be done perfectly. Because I was not calm, I was too aware of every mistake I made. The Master Priests watched without commenting, without smiling or coughing, and only rarely moving a finger or a chin to indicate to a fellow Priest a move done poorly or well. I could not decipher their gestures, so I ignored them.

“Good,” Binnuth said when we finished the Thirteen Patterns together. “Very good. I think that only a bout between you two will decide who succeeds. The usual rule of halting your blows at the point of contact will not apply in this test.”

I glanced at Binnuth, not sure that I had heard correctly. She still smiled. Embarrassed at my lack of control, I faced Vayil and bowed. The floor was cold and slick beneath my feet. Vayil’s face was as unreadable as mine. We circled each other, each in sparring stance, and I wondered how I could defeat her when she knew every trick I had learned and knew every one better.

She probed my defense with a front kick, which I deflected easily. She skipped in, snapping her closer fist at my chin. As I blocked that, she came in with a blow to my side. I spun, but the blow connected, and hurt. I wondered for an instant if the Priests would stop us. I did not slow myself in the hope that they would.

I continued my spin and came about with a sweeping back kick. Vayil caught my leg and pushed me forward to the floor, pinning me to the ground. She expected the Priests to stop us then, I think, so she didn’t follow up with a blow to my kidneys. I rolled free of her. I kicked at her, only thinking to keep her away. The kick caught her chin, and she fell backward.

I glanced again at the Priests, hoping that one of them would speak. They watched. Tchanin was no different, and I wondered what he wanted of me. I glanced back at Vayil in time to see her come for me with a side kick, and I skipped several steps backward to avoid it.

I realized then that I liked Vayil. I had always thought I hated her for being attractive and diligent and wealthy, for being older, for being better at the Art than I. For the year before Kiyan came to Loh, I had desired Vayil, and she had never treated me as anything more or less than a fellow student. Svanik and I had joked about her, but as I saw her standing before me, I knew that I loved her, perhaps more than I loved Kiyan. I also knew that only one of us would leave this room a Priest.

I came in with a flurry of punches to her face, and several connected. She kicked at me, but I dodged and hit her again, knocking her down. Still the Priests said nothing. Vayil stood, her face bloody and ugly, and came forward. I kicked her in the stomach. She doubled up, spat blood, then stood, raising her fists. I kicked again, a forward sweeping kick, and she dropped to the floor.

“I’ve won,” I said quietly.

“Have you?” said Binnuth, turning to Vayil. “Has he?”

“No,” Vayil said, struggling to stand.

I whispered to Vayil, “Don’t.” She shook her head, and her hair flew about her battered face. I caught her arm as she punched and twisted it behind her back. “Quit!” I whispered.

She stomped my foot as she brought her free elbow back into my chest. Avoiding those blows, I let her loose. She shook her head again and kicked at me. I shoved her hard, knocking her down again.

I don’t know how many times we played that scenario. I kept trying to think of techniques to incapacitate her without killing her or breaking bones, but I could not. I wondered if that was what the Priests wanted, for the weaker of us to die. Time after time Vayil stood, Vayil threatened me, and I hit her. It seemed to me that this might be the crudest fate I could imagine, to be winning forever and never to have won.

When she finally fell and did not rise, I hardly believed it. When I saw that she would not get up, I knelt beside her to be sure that she was breathing freely. I carefully turned her, suspecting this might be a trick on her part, but she was unconscious. I pitied her as she lay there, for I knew that waking to failure would not be easy. I hated myself for having to win. I hated the Priests for making me win. Yet a part of me was very proud; Tchanin’s promise that learning would be painful had been too horribly true, yet I had learned and I had won. I stood to face the Priests.

Tchanin was weeping. All of the Priests seemed to be sad or embarrassed or feeling something I could not recognize. I said hesitantly, “I’ve won.”

Tchanin looked away. Rising, Binnuth said, “You may go, Rifkin. We will care for Vayil Priest.”

I walked for three weeks from the White Mountain to Istviar, and I lived on charity and petty theft. When I came to the City of Ships, I almost decided to return to Loh. Istviar was larger than I could comprehend. In one minute more people passed me on its streets than inhabited the whole of Loh. Its gaily painted bricks made Loh’s weathered wooden huts seem shameful things. I watched the crowd of passing cityfolk for someone with a kind face, and finally I asked a middle-aged woman in patched robes for help. She laughed. I did not know if she laughed at me or at my question. I almost left before she could say, “You seek a slim girl of sixteen years, Kiyan by name, whose mother is important? You must be from Rassoe.”

“No,” I said. “Loh.”

“Ah. Well, boy of Loh, you seek the daughter of the Sea Queen. Ask at the palace, if you wish.” She pointed at a tall, graceful building in yellow and gold that overlooked the harbor.

“The daughter of the Sea Queen?”

“Yes.”

I realized that this did not surprise me, perhaps because I’d never given a great deal of thought to the Sea Queen’s power. I knew Kiyan had secrets from the Lohfolk, and this had been one.

At the palace I asked a servant if Kiyan was busy. The servant blinked, saying, “The Little Queen? I’ll ask. And you are... ?”

“Rifkin Freeman.”

The servant returned smiling, and took me around the palace to a small garden of rocks and ferns and cactuses. Kiyan waited there with several attendants, but she gestured for them to leave as I approached. She wore closely tailored pants and a shirt of gold thread and a black sash, and her hair was longer than when I had seen her last. She looked at my face and said sadly, “Oh, Rifkin. Poor Rifkin.”

“You were right,” I said. “The Priests are all crazy.”

“Shush,” she said. No one disturbed us, and we stayed there for the rest of the afternoon.

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