170 - The dance farewell

I am no longer a warrior, I thought, so I must give up Chirel. No—in truth, I already have.

Tears came to my eyes instantly, and yet when I reminded myself that what I must be missing was using it, they seemed to be made as much of relief as sadness.

Did the asa kraiya ceremony involve one’s sword? I knew nothing, of course, but couldn’t imagine it wouldn’t. I would officially relinquish it then, I guessed. Until then I would retain it, officially; but when I imagined myself holding it, I knew the true time was now. The one who had dueled Younger Riji was no longer worthy of wielding it.

I had an urge, that I didn’t understand, to make my own farewell to it, alone. My work with Surya had taught me better to follow such urges, without worrying whether I understood them. My deeper mind, he’d say, did understand.

So that night, when everyone else was asleep, I crept up out of bed, went down to the training room naked, and slung it on my shoulder. I lit no lights. Darkness or light had never mattered to my warriorhood.

The room was not so dark, though. Snow was no longer melting when it fell, but becoming a thicker white blanket; the glass wall now looked onto an expanse of it, lit by the stars and a pure white blade-moon. So new and yet already worn in with the sweat of those who had practiced here, the floor bearing the touch of our feet, the room was a different place in moonlight, as if I had become a stranger to it.

I did the Mezem warm-up, then took the centre of the floor. This was not in violation of my restrictions; I had been forbidden to train with steel, and since training is that exercise taken with the intent of eventually using what it teaches against enemies, I was not training. I knelt with my hand on the grip.

Chirel is greater than me, I thought. Chirel will last far longer. Ironic, that it is immortal while these living hands go down to death, as have all those who wielded it before. This—I drew the blade and gazed at the ancient perfect steel—is eternal; this—I looked at my own hand—is fleeting, expendable, interchangeable with any other. Being but a piece of steel, Chirel will not even keep the memory of my hand’s grip. And yet, being a piece of steel, it is nothing without my hand.

It was as I had expected it might be; the sword was familiar as my arm, and entirely strange, as if I’d never picked up any sword before, both at once. It was like a dream, and I felt it so strongly I went light-headed, and sheathed it again out of fear I would fall and cut myself, remembering how recently I’d been head-struck. Breathe. Truly, I was no longer a warrior; my heart would never beat, nor my blood run, to that rhythm again. And yet I could, of course, still draw fast as thought with a motion I hardly felt. The tears began as I did it again.

I found myself inclined to speak, but with my body as well as my voice. I let inclination carry me. I danced, and sang in war-cries, farewell. As in fighting itself, I did not know what the next move was until I did it, just let my body go where it would.

What it did was re-enact. I fought Kallijas again, and Riji Kli-fas, and Iliakaj, and Sakrent, and the Mahid in the Marble Palace; I fought other fights whose every move my arms and legs remembered, but my mind did not.

I did not know how long I went. I knew only that I would stop when I knew I was finished.

I wept as I danced even though I did not dance in grief, but in celebration, in enactment of all those things I was leaving behind. I danced the honour Chirel deserved; I danced my own greatness as a warrior and a general, that had been seven-eighths of my pride; I danced the beauty that I had lived, along with the agony, on the field; I danced the joy of victory, which is both the joy of continued life and of accomplishment; I danced the lessons I had learned from my defeats.

I danced the bond of life and death I had shared with my sibling warriors, a bond like no other that exists, that I was breaking forever. I danced the expression of shock and agony on the face of everyone I had ever vanquished, as with Chirel I put an end to their striving to do likewise to me; I danced the feeling of the blade entering flesh, the sight of the gout of life-blood, the sound of the cry whose finality is unmistakable, the sudden laxness of limbs and the body falling at my feet; I danced the ecstasy of seeing the death of enemy intent.

I danced the further joys that only warriors know, since only warriors can understand how they can be joys, joys I will not name lest non-warriors read this. All these joys I danced, and I danced farewell to, for already they were ceasing to be joys to me, and turning into the horrors they truly were, that by healing I was learning to feel in their deeper truth, the essential and universal truth, the truth that is the All-Spirit of asa kraiya.

When I felt it was finished, I sheathed Chirel, and stood still. I was drenched in sweat and tears. It was as if I heard words in my mind: “Get to where you won’t fall.” I dropped to my hands and lay flat on the floor, bracing myself.

The sword within lurched in my spine, as it had never done before even with Surya touching it, as if it were being loosened in its scabbard. That sent me elsewhere for long enough that when I realized I was back, I had been lying on the floor long enough to get cold. I leaned carefully on walls and door-posts all the way to the hot-tub.

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