196 - We do not want to stop raising Chevengas

We do not want to stop raising Chevengas

Opinion of Kariya Echena : Terera Pages, atakina 70, 1556

In future years—and centuries—Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e will be cherished as a national hero, and held up as one of our finest examples of dedication and self-sacrifice to admire and emulate.

But if certain of the recommendations of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee become law—a matter currently being debated by Assembly—he might be the last semanakraseye of such character.

The Committee recommended that all those involved in raising future ascendants “avoid excessive strictness, harsh punishments and expectations other than the semanakraseyesin” and “persuade no child ascendant to enter warriorhood who himself objects.” As well it recommended that Assembly study the effects of the customs—and presumably the laws—that govern the conduct of semanakraseyel has affected their mental states through history—presumably in contemplation of changing those laws.

The implications should send a shiver down every Yeoli spine.

In 1548, all but enslaved as a province of the empire of Arko, we looked to Chevenga as our only hope. He fulfilled that hope spectacularly. Would he have been capable of it, if he had not been raised as he was? Would he have had the discipline, courage and ruthlessness necessary, without an upbringing strict in its emphasis on duty to his people? Would he have been willing to put his own life on the line as a fighting commander if he had not been raised firmly in the principle of semanakraseyeni self-sacrifice, as epitomized by the Kiss of the Lake?

There is undeniable evidence that, if the Committee could have its way reaching backwards in time, Chevenga would not have been a warrior at all. To borrow the Committee’s own wording, he himself objected, at the age of seven, but was convinced to stay with his training by his shadow-father. Had Esora-e Mangu been restrained by such a recommendation, we would be the slaves of Arko now. In its deliberations, the Committee seems not to have not to have taken this into account.

Sympathy is natural in a small group of people working at length and intimately with a person, especially one who has suffered greatly. We would not be Yeolis if we had no appreciation for those who have paid such huge prices on our behalf, or compassion for those in pain. But in taking Chevenga’s part, the Committee seems to have lost the greater view of the benefit of the people it serves.

Its members’ concern is not that the traditions can drive a semanakraseye insane to the point of being unable to hold the position; they have repeatedly noted Chevenga excelled at it. It is more a matter of personal mercy, that no one should be treated harshly as a matter of ethics. But over our history, the people of Yeola-e have made a series of collective choices, the most significant one after the War of the Travesty, to hold the semanakraseye to extraordinary standards since he wields extraordinary power.

That sometimes requires a waiving of the ethic of mercy. Yeolis have been willing to impose that, and semanakraseyel have been willing to endure it. In fact Chevenga himself, asked whether he wishes he’d had his childish way and been untrained in war when the Arkans invaded, has said no.

The argument made on his behalf, and that of future semanakraseyel, is that it was his life itself, and could be theirs, in jeopardy. So it may be, though it is hard to imagine, when no law or custom limits the years of a semanakraseye to thirty, how law or custom can be faulted in his case. But the tradition requiring him to lay down his life if necessary, and to demonstrate his willingness and ability to do so on three four-yearly occasions, has been firm for two centuries. Is the Committee implicitly recommending cancelling that?

For that matter, is Chevenga doing so himself, in choosing to go asa kraiya? It is not unprecedented for a semanakraseye, of course, but none has done it so early in life, forty-one being the youngest age previously. The act conveys a weighty message to his own young, and indeed to all his descendants. Will the Shae-Arano-el cease being a warrior line? Even the most powerful of our enemies are thoroughly cowed, currently, but they could regain courage in a moment on learning that our greatest military genius has laid down his sword while his heirs are still young and impressionable.

It has always been recognized that the most deeply-held ethic of selflessness begins with the stream-test. Perhaps wisely fearful of political repercussions, the Committee made no recommendations on that. But Chevenga himself has renounced the notion of exposing any further children of his to it, including the one soon to be born, in violation of a custom held firmly by his and other semanakraseyeni families for the entire millennium and a half of our history. We cannot count this a result of the temporary insanity that took him on remembering his own testing, since his resolve has not wavered despite recovering.

In light of this willingness to further unravel the latticework of practices that keeps Yeola-e strong and safe, perhaps it is time to consider relieving the Shae-Arano-el of the position and granting them a well-earned rest, and allow a fresh and willing family to take it on. That would mean Yeola-e losing the full benefit of gifts and talents that have been carefully bred into the Shae-Arano-e bloodline over centuries, due to the choices of one man, but still might be for the best.

After his matchless service, the Champion of the People is deserving of no opprobrium. These are questions that should be approached dispassionately, and with the good of the people as the one and only consideration. He will be judged fit or unfit for reinstatement in a national vote one more time. As we take up our chips to mark chalk or charcoal, we should not allow our emotions, even love and appreciation, to taint our vote, but choose carefully and by pure reason, in consideration not of Chevenga’s past, which by his own choice will not be his future, but of Yeola-e’s future, both immediate and far-reaching. In our hands lies the fate of our descendants, to whom we owe our love.

And when weighing whether to soften the upbringing of semanakraseyel-to-be, we should consider very carefully how defenseless we want those beloved descendants to be.

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[Author's note: character chat]

As posted on PA: ever wanted to walk into the world of a book and have a conversation with one or more of the characters?

Now is your chance to do it with ours, via online chat. Vote for whoever in The Philosopher in Arms, asa kraiya or Eclipse Court you'd like to virtually meet the most. We've posted polls with the same voting options on PA and EC, so please go over to one or the other or (haha) both, and express your share of the people's will. Shirley and I will set it up and give advance notice for date, time and link. And that character will be there for, let's say, half an hour. Maybe more if you can talk him or her into staying. As of this writing, we've got one vote for the guy with the candle.

If there's enough interest in this, we'll start doing it regularly, though probably infrequently.





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[Author's note: Christmas dinner]

Burnout hit me like a ton of bricks last Friday (Dec 18) and the following weekend. It's a feeling sort of like my head is full of cotton but there's also a kind of mental weight dragging me down, a lack of energy and a need for more sleep (I have been napping during the day a lot). Nasty emotions go along with it too, of course: feelings of desperation, inadequacy, demoralization, etc. I started feeling it on and off back in the summer, but never as bad as last week.

But the hiatus is helping.

And since it is Christmas (by my book, the season doesn't end until all the leftovers are gone) I am indulging in the traditional annual pig-out. On Shirley's urging, I post what we had for Christmas dinner at my place last night, since it was not at all the usual.

She had done turkey on Christmas Eve (being of German extraction, she celebrates it then, so we were all over at her place) so I opted for a duck and, on a whim, added two cornish hens. The only thing I planned before the day was to stuff the duck with roughly equal proportions of clementine sections, coarsely chopped onion and garlic cloves, with several glugs of soy sauce. Everything else we did was spontaneous and based on what I had on hand.

We glazed the duck with a mixture of 1 cup orange juice, 1 tsp chopped garlic, 1 tbsp honey, liquid smoke to taste, pepper to taste, chili sauce to taste and a goodly slug of red wine, all thickened with a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch. The duck was repeatedly basted with this while it baked.

The first cornish hen with stuffed with onion and garlic cloves, and glazed with about 1/4 cup of coconut milk, 1 tbsp tandoori powder and 1 tsp of chopped garlic.

For the second, we sweated one large onion, chopped, 2 tbsp basil pesto, 2 tbsp chopped garlic, in pure bacon grease, then deglazed it with a generous slosh of red wine, and marinated the bird in this for a few hours. We then removed the bird from the marinade and fried the marinade up again, adding 1 slice of German rye bread torn up, 1/2 1bsp butter and soy sauce to taste, and stuffed the bird with it.

Into the oven all the birds went, with potatoes. The duck took about two hours, the cornish hens one. We also did a vegetable dish that is usually done with Swiss chard; you fry three slices of bacon until they're crisp, remove, crumble, fry the chard in the bacon grease until it's wilted, put it in a baking pan, sprinkle generously with a combination of bacon bits, Parmesan cheese and chopped garlic, and bake until the surface is golden brown. We did this with nappa, aka Chinese lettuce, for a different but equally good effect.

We made a delicious gravy out of the duck drippings by adding flour, duck stock and white wine. We made a second delicious gravy out of the cornish hen drippings -- both hens were in one roasting pan -- just by adding flour and water.

Last thing on the menu: Yorkshire pudding, which was awesome with either gravy.

If you happen to get any ideas from this, bon appetit.






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195 - Something unearthly pure and good

My hand shrinks from writing this, just from the memory of the shame. Of course my shame is already known to you, in all its fullness. I just felt it worst then.

Through all those invitations to Shininao, that I had never even counted up until the Committee made me, I had never felt the horror of what I was doing. Now I did. Each time, I had tortured all who loved me. I had not seen it. My shame was double; for doing it, and for the blindness.

I stayed under the covers. I did not want Iyinisa Windsword to see my face. I didn’t want anyone to see it, ever again. I wanted to die, and this time make it final, except that doing so would so compound my shame. I ripped at what was left of my hair.

“Good for you,” I heard her say, her voice distant through the quilts. “Take a deep breath.” Good for me? “It’s not unusual for warriors to want to kill themselves so as to stop living the horror of dealing death to others, so don’t feel that you are alone with it.” No one on or before the Committee had told me that. Not even Surya had. “Now you’ve come to the point of realizing the horror of dealing death to yourself. This is why I say, good for you.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to look anyone I love in the face again,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to come out.

“Why? Because you understand their feelings?”

Now the tears came. She patted me on the back through the quilts. “Just feel it, Virani-e.” Integrity—I don’t deserve that name.

“I’m sorry, Iyinisa, I’m sorry... I’m not fit company.”

“No shame, Virani-e. I went through the messiness myself. Not suicidal, but other things that made me unfit company. I am staying to sit with you.”

“All-Spirit… Why on the Earthsphere do they still love me? How many times... The Committee... They took a tally but there’s one they don’t even know about. It was after they were pretty much done their report... I should tell them.”

“You feel criminal, so you want to turn yourself in,” she said. “As if you have not been, and will not be, judged plenty enough, this year.” She found the back of my head with her hand, and gave it a little shake. “You’re here for a while now, anyway. You should make no major decisions until you know yourself again. Trust me on that.”

This had too much of the ring of truth, and experience, to argue with. “All-Spirit,” I whispered. “I don’t even know how I’m going to bring myself to come out from under these covers, I’m so ashamed.”

“That’s fine. You can spend a month under there if you need to. Every now and then we’ll come in and throw some water on you and the sheets.”

I laughed in a gasp, in spite of myself. “Kyash,” I said. “It’s not as if I can hide any kevyalin thing.” I threw them off.

“I went through something like this myself,” she said. “I spent about ten days just helplessly asking ‘why? Why did I do this?’”

“Why did you go asa kraiya?”

“Why did I do anything. Was I mad? Why had I fought, why had I stopped fighting, why had I trained, why had I spit on my training, as people said—why, why, why.”

“But you eventually did figure it all out.”

“Oh yes. I spent a day and a half under the covers.” I stared at her. She was so admirable, so graceful, so sane and sensible, I couldn’t imagine it. “You’re doing well, Virani-e, only hiding there for a bit.”

“I… I might go back under.”

That made her laugh. “I did two or three times more. I even hid under the bed once, I was that upset.” That made me laugh, a snorting giggle, for which I apologized immediately.

“You should hear the stories of how it was for Azaila. We’ve been through all our versions of it.”

“Azaila? Now you’ve said that, you have to tell me.”

“They are his to tell, but he’s willing to tell asakraiyaseyel. I’ll just say one thing…” A smile quirked her lips. “Ask him about the tree.”

“The tree.”

“Yes, the tree. Ask him.”

“The tree. I will, if I can bring myself to look him in the face.”

“You feel bad,” she said. “The feeling is not the reality. Virani-e, think of the relief those who love you are feeling now.”

“Maybe. They don’t know I won’t... kyash.” Tears seized me again, as I realized: I had given them not only pain, but fear. How could they trust me, never to do it again? “Pardon me, Iyinisa.” I burrowed back under the covers.” She put her hand on my back again, gently.

“I need to talk,” I said, when I could, “to everyone in my family... not until I’m done here, I guess. Except my mother... if she’s here.”

“She is here.” The urge to run to her arms and the urge to fling myself on my face in front of her in shame were about equal.

“I could write letters… no, what in kyash am I talking about, something like this has to be in person.” Did I have a pen? Had I brought anything? I hadn’t thought about so much as a change of clothes.

I lifted my head enough to look around the room. It was very plain, in a Second Nainginin sort of way, furnished with just the bed, the night-table, a wardrobe and the stool on which Iyinisa sat. I saw one familiar thing: a chest that I knew from the Hearthstone. “Skorsas sent that down,” she said. It would have everything I could conceivably need, then. “You may want to write down what you wish to say, and hold onto it.”

“Or let my mind settle first. As you keep saying.”

“Yes. This is good. I don’t think I need to toss you in the lake yet.”

“Toss me in the lake? Is that a healing method?”

“Yes,” she said, without allowing a smile. “Highly recommended by eccentric old asa kraiya masters.”

“Ah. I suppose it will happen to me when I most need it, which would coincidentally be when I least expect it.”

“Yes,” she said relishingly. “You will stagger out of the lake yelling, ‘And you told me you were going to! Kyash!’”

“This sounds like you’re planning it,” I said. “Maybe I should just jump in and save you the trouble. All-Spirit… Iyinisa, I can’t tell you how much like shit I feel.”

“I know, Virani-e. Don’t worry.” Everything’s going as it should. I didn’t need Surya in the room; he was in my head.

“It seems like the only possible relief is to throw myself at their feet... beg for.... no, I’m too ashamed even to beg for forgiveness. I guess I’ve gotten what I deserve; the whole world knows what I have done to them. It’s been studied, discussed, graven into the Yeoli public record. The people will choose to keep or toss me, in the light of it. But my family…” I was seeing their faces one by one, now, and imagining how it must have been for each. Niku… Kallijas… Skorsas… my mother… my shadow-father… Again, he’s done it… so close… how is he… will this end before the time he succeeds? The thought sent my hands to my hair again, pulling hard enough to cause pain. “Maybe,” I said weakly, “I need to speak to Surya. But if he’s not here—”

The door was still open. She called out through it. “Surya! You’re needed here.”

He looked the same as ever, perhaps the one thing in my life that was not changed. He ran his eyes over my aura. He didn’t look as if he was seeing anything he didn’t expect. He sat beside me on the bed. “Perhaps you should look at it like this, Virani-e,” he said. “Everything you could be ashamed for is the stroke of the past.” I hid my eyes in my hands, the sobs starting again. “Tell me,” he said gently.

I talked. I took breaks whenever the weeping was too hard for words. “Kyash, Surya, can you believe it? I’ve forgotten the kevyalin number again... I never did chiravesa, never once, never even thought to care about what they felt, as if I had no heart!”

“When you are in severe enough pain, it is impossible to think outside it,” he said.

“I thought I was... every time, I felt I was doing the world good by erasing myself from it. I felt it was the right thing. Tamenat and the Committee hit it exactly. But it wasn’t... that’s what’s hitting me. How wrong it was.”

There was something unearthly pure and good in these words, as if I washed out my soul by saying them. I hadn’t been so honest even with the Committee, and I’d been under oath. I’d been incapable. “Surya,” I said, voicing the realization as it came to me. “I had to have the steel taken out of me before I could see this.”

“Yes, you are exactly right,” he said.

“I think I just need to lie here... in this... for a while,” I said. “I am stepping away from that… from all of it... all these death things. And I guess I don’t know what I’m stepping into. Integrity... I know that’s what a Haian would say. Like the House of. Wholeness… my shattered parts knitting themselves together. And I don’t have to do anything... it will just happen. Same as a bodily wound.”

“Yes, all correct,” Surya said, and Iyinisa signed chalk.

I had just woken up, but suddenly I was exhausted. If I closed my eyes, I knew, sleep would take me like a rock in the temple. It was trying to drag down my eyelids. I remembered what Surya had told me and I had then learned from experience: severe emotion is the more tiring than anything, even fighting. “Sleep if you feel like it,” said Iyinisa. “That’s what this place is for.” I was free, here. I was gone like a candle blown out.

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194 - The maesa asa kraiya

I knew I was not at home. I smelled wood-smoke and a beeswax candle, but underneath that was the smell that you only smell in a place that is hundreds of years old, and has been lived in all that time. I am not sure what it is, whether it is something in the wood or the stone or ancient things that have been kept, but the Hearthstone Independent, being new, doesn’t have it yet.

I heard the metallic ticking of the iron door of a stone-stove, and a faint muffled pop from within. Otherwise, this place was very quiet, like land after snow has fallen on it and there is no wind. I sensed it was built of stone. I thought perhaps I heard quiet voices, distant, but wasn’t sure.

I was lying on a bed that was deeply soft under me, wrapped in thick down quilts. Everything was vivid to my senses, most of all the feeling of ultimate peace.

I just lay for a while, not yet ready to open my eyes, the first step towards leaving this comfort. When I felt inclined, I opened them. The room was mostly dark, lit only by one candle, and threads of daylight that came through cracks around window-shutters. No Arkan glass here. The age-darkened posts and beams were carved with the kind of running-patterns that had been in style about six centuries ago, the time of Second Naingini.

Remembering what I could last remember, I took stock of my body. I could feel nothing at the core; did that mean there was nothing? My reason knew I must still have a spine; my heart feared that if moved an arm or leg it might tumble off, albeit painlessly. zhring… the sound of a blade being drawn was so close that if I thought about it I would hear it again, as if with my ears. I closed my eyes again, for a while. Outside, it began to rain, pounding distantly on the roof, dripping from eaves onto snow outside.

The light of a lamp flickered through the door, which was slightly ajar. Moving slowly, as if not wanting to startle anyone, someone peeked through the gap for a bit, then was gone, though I might have met her eyes; I wasn’t certain, but sensed it was a woman. I closed mine, and took a deep breath to find out how it would feel. It felt the same as usual, clear but for a slight pang from the wound from Idiesas’s sword.

A while later, she peeked in again. I understood; she would not call me awake, or come in and so possibly force me to wake, but was keeping watch over me. This time I purposely met her eyes. “Virani-e,” she said, speaking quietly the way people do when they’re in place you should speak quietly, like a library.

If I no longer had a voice, I’d find out now. “Yes.” It was a whisper. My throat felt strained, as if I’d been screaming.

“Good morning,” she said. “I’m Iyinisa Shae-Lira. Every new asakraiyaseye who comes here has a mentor, as you might know. I’m yours.”

“Iyinisa… Shae-Lira… Iyinisa Windsword?” She’d been Yeola-e’s greatest champion in the Enchian wars of the 1530s. My father had looked up to her, in awe. I remembered how Riji Kli-fas’s fighting style had reminded me of her name.

“That was my usename. May I come in?” I said yes and risked whatever would happen to lift a hand to straighten my hair, forgetting that there was hardly enough to straighten. Nothing happened but streaks of ache down the life-force-lines, that had really already been there.

She was in her late fifties or so now, still slender, with salt-and-pepper ringlets tied back with a white ribbon but hanging to her waist nonetheless. She wore the asakraiyaseye’s black robe with the double white stripes on the collar. That reminded me that I knew her face; she had been the ceremonial sentry by the carving of the faces with their eyes closed in the School, who had asked me if I was choosing it in acceptance that many would not understand. It must have been very many for her too, I thought.

She still moved well. She sat down on a stool beside my bed. I knew she had retired when I’d been very young; her name had faded from people’s lips and my mind. I’d had no idea she was in the maesa asa kraiya. That was where I assumed we were; I had the vaguest notion of being carried downhill through cold darkness, and the rocking of a boat.

“My mentor… thank you, for agreeing to that. Iyinisa… if I may call you that… I am more than honoured.”

“Of course you may call me that. I called you Virani-e assuming you wouldn’t mind… we don’t go much for titles or honorifics here. It’s good to meet you again.”

“Again?”

“Oh yes, I carried you on my arm a few times, before I came here. You were so little, you’d never remember.” That’s why she had seemed anciently familiar, in the School. Had she been here ever since? I didn’t feel it was quite time to ask that yet. “How are you feeling?”

I thought before I answered that. “Glad to be here,” I said finally. “Though I don’t remember arriving.”

“I’m not surprised you don’t; from when your litter was handed off the boat to when we tucked you in, you were sleeping like the dead.”

“I should at least try to get up.” I pushed the covers back, started gingerly to get one elbow under me.

“Should? Why?”

“As a test of…” My strength, I’d been about to say. A warrior thing.

“Get up if you want to,” she said. “Not if you don’t, because you should. While you are here, you belong to yourself and have obligations towards yourself, alone. Except for chores, if you’re up to them. Didn’t Azaila explain that?” I lay back down. I didn’t want to get up. “How else do you feel?”

“I feel…” I wasn’t sure what I felt, other than peace, and that seemed more of the place than of me. Mostly I felt a kind of internal blankness, that was good. “I… I don’t know if you know… I had something… pulled out of me.”

“Steel within, yes.”

“I… guess I went down as if I’d been clubbed, and then Surya did tenar menhu on me… you know what that is?”

“Yes.” Then I remembered: as one of the ceremonial sentries, she’d been there. “Where it turned into sleep, I’m not sure.”

“Doesn’t matter. Here’s water.” She touched a jug and a cup on the night-table. “Are you hungry?”

My guts were firm in their disinterest. “No, thank you. I have to pee, though.” She reached down and pulled a chamber-pot, glazed with one of those flame-and-flower emblems that had been popular six hundred years ago, out from under the bed. In front of Iyinisa Windsword, I was going to do this; I didn’t have the nerve to send her out. She was matter-of-fact about it, putting the lid on like a servant, then smoothing the covers in around me like a mother, but with old-warrior smoothness and unthinking dignity in every motion.

“Did you… have steel pulled out of you?” I asked her.

“I sweated it out. Last few battles, I was pouring out much more sweat than I should, from exertion alone. I thought I was ill. I even wondered if I was turning into a coward, since it was only while I was fighting.”

“But, let me guess, it didn’t feel like fear.”

“It didn’t. You know, there were people who thought I never felt fear, ever; it must be the same for you.”

“Oh, yes. But Surya—Chaelaecha, my healer—had something like that, except not just while he was fighting, and he had more different symptoms. It was his auric gift struggling to come out, as well as… asa kraiya, I guess. I just came off a healing sickness myself, actually.”

“It’s different for everyone. You were telling me how it felt to have it pulled out; tell me more. It’s good for you to talk about it. I’ll comfort you if you need.”

The tears came, of course, when I got to Esora-e’s part. She held my shoulder, firmly and gently at once. “That must have been astounding to see,” she said, when I described the sword, so apparently she hadn’t seen hers.

“I haven’t had a chance to thank him… I guess I won’t for a month, unless by writing, but that’s not good enough… I hope he’ll understand.”

“Of course he will. What he did shows he now sees past his training; maybe it will open the way for him to go asa kraiya himself.”

I felt my brows arch up. “Him, go asa kraiya? I find that hard to imagine… of course, everyone found it hard to imagine me doing it. Never say never.”

“One person opens the way for others.” I remembered Surya saying the same. There was a thorough attentiveness in her caring, that made me understand the sort of warrior she had been, giving that same attentiveness to fighting.

I lost myself for a moment, in imagining Esora-e’s ceremony; though of course I didn’t have the gift, I wanted, so badly I could taste it, to pull whatever was in him out myself. “You’ve opened the way for many,” Iyinisa said. “I heard you speak in the square.”

“Was it smooth? Skorsas, Kallijas and Niku said so, but they might just be humouring me, and none of them can judge it like another Yeoli.”

“Smooth enough to flow but not too smooth to not be from the heart. It was coming to you as it came, wasn’t it, not practiced?”

“You’ve caught me out. I had no idea what I was going to say.”

“It works that way often, with healers; they open their mouths trusting in truth to come out, and it does.”

“Healers?” Champion of old or not, I looked at her under my brows. “I’m not a healer. You and Surya were talking, weren’t you?”

She laughed. “Yes, but not about that. You are. The hardest one to heal is oneself, but by letting go the steel you do that, and you’ve done it.”

“Every asakraiyaseye is a healer, then.”

Her smile widened. “You might say. One reason why the nation needs us. You caught the beginning of that in your speech. Think you could take tea, now?” It was worth a try. When she came back with the pot and two delicate little cups on a tray with shell-like fluting carved onto its edges, another Second Nainginini motif, it suddenly occurred to me that everything was old here for the same reason it was on Haiu Menshir. This place had never been sacked. The tea tasted unearthly good.

Iyinisa opened the stone-stove door, threw in two pieces of wood from a small stack beside it and closed it tight again. I had to get my feet under me soon; someone twice my age who once carried all Yeola-e’s fate on her sword-edge should not be serving me, whatever I wanted. “I know how it is, or will be, for you, Virani-e,” she said. “The whole world feels as though a child threw it all in the air and it’s come down all entirely in different places on the floor, so you have to learn the new pattern.”

“That started back in spring,” I said. “That child was flinging it all skyward the moment I swore the oath to obey Surya. It had to be quick with me, he said, or else… you know. I almost killed myself twice anyway. Well…” I could trust her entirely; I was certain. “Four times, in truth, just between you, me and the gatepost. I’m hoping that now I’ll have quit being such a fool as to keep—”

The feeling seized me instantly, like nausea at the sight of an atrocity. I didn’t even understand what it was, at first, even as I curled in on myself, clenching my fists in my hair, then turned away from her and pulled the covers over my face. It was the feeling I was always slowest to spot in myself. “Kyash… kyash… aigh… Kaha—I am not worthy to say it kyash, why, what was I doing, what was I kyashin doing?”

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193 - A letter as short interlude

Workfast Literary in Terera

atakina 67, 1556

To: First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e

Dear Virani-e:

Thank you for your letter of explanation dated atakina 29. We realize that you couldn’t possibly fulfill your promise to finish the manuscript “within a few days, when the Circle School Annual Games are over,” as you wrote, as you were wounded the final evening.

We understand that the time that has passed since then—more than a moon—has been very busy for you, and you have had many distractions.

We also understand that even though you wrote to us in the spring, while you were still in Arko, “I will have plenty of time once I’m at home and no longer Imperator,” that this isn’t how things turned out at all, despite your being on medical leave from the semanakraseyesin.

Now we are concerned that you might not get the work done before your asa kraiya ceremony on atakina 71, which worries us on two counts. First, we understand that people who go asa kraiya often sequester themselves afterwards on the island in Lake Terera, and have little or no communication with the outside, so we would have no hope of seeing the completed manuscript until after that is over, and it could be a moon or more.

Second, and perhaps you can inform us on this: is it even acceptable in the asa kraiya community for one of its members to write instruction manuals on strategy and tactics? If not… we despair of ever seeing the manuscript, if it is not completed beforehand. Please inform as soon as possible.

As you know—and we appreciate the abject apologies you have already repeatedly offered—we have already had to revise our publishing schedule twice because we do not yet have the manuscript. I hope that somehow you can find time and attention to give to this matter. We wish you the very best for the ceremony and your health and happiness far into the future.

Thank you in advance,

Lurai Athal

Chief Editor.

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192 - Surya's hand holding my soul

Why am I more afraid of this than I am of death? The distant part of me pondered that while my gorge came up. “I have to throw up,” I gasped. Kaninjer and Skorsas let go and I sprang up. At least it was the School of the Sword, so I knew exactly how to get to the garderobe without having to think about it. I’d practiced enough as a child, being pushed until the pukes came, and hearing Azaila’s command, “Throw up and feel good about it!” in my ears as I ran.

Why does this seem more dangerous than death? As much good to ask logic of fear as to teach a horse economics. I threw up, and felt good about it, as always, but not so good about going back. All-Spirit… put one foot in front of the other… don’t make them come and get me. Chevenga, hiding in a garderobe; how would that look to the Yeoli voter? I chose this. I need this. It’s only fear. By putting all my soul into the act of walking, I got back into the gathering room.

As if it was nothing, as if the fate of the world didn’t depend on it, Kaninjer and Skorsas each took one of my arms again, pinning it firmly against his side. I don’t know if I can do this… I don’t know if I can do this… I’m Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, I never say I don’t know if I can do this. I remembered Surya’s words. You have to let it go. I can’t pull it out unless you let it go.

He held my head between his hands, front and back. That helped. I closed my eyes, wanting to give myself to the tenderness of all three of them and fall into oblivion, like a baby. “Don’t,” Surya said. “Stay in the present. Deep breath. Make the white line. I’m going to pull the sword out of you; you have to let it go.” Somehow these words helped, by drawing the line of truth around my fate, reining-in the limitlessness of fear. I looked at myself in the mirror, quivering and dripping sweat.

They gave me time. I willed calm, with deep breaths; I made the white line. I had so much practice. Perhaps much of it was for this, I thought. “You already have some idea what it will feel like,” Surya whispered to me, “from my moving it in you. You are afraid you will not be able to stand it and it will somehow destroy you; don’t be. You can stand it, and it will not destroy you, nor anything or anyone else.” Deep breath. Make the white line. Make the white line stronger. “Bring in the singing wind, too,” he said. His hand was on my neck again.

All-Spirit… God-in-Me. You who are more than another member of my command council. I thought of the animal in the woods. I heard it, faint and flowing. “When I do it,” Surya whispered, “see it. Use the mirror; look in my hand.” With the gentlest touch, he bent my head forward, but not so far that I could not see the mirror. “Tell me when you are ready.”

Never… never… I can never be ready for this… I brought in the singing wind stronger, made the white line brighter. I felt the love in Skorsas’s and Kan’s grip, paid more attention to it; don’t worry, we will bring you through this, that touch said. I counted out my breaths, as I had in Assembly while Linasika spoke. “I’m ready.” My voice was a croaking whisper, that I seemed to hear from outside myself, as if I were outside and it came from outside, both at once.

He laid his shield-hand on my shoulder. Like you hold the top of the scabbard for a waist-draw, the distant part of me thought. He touched his sword-hand fingers to the back of my neck again. “Keep the white line. Keep the singing wind. Relax; let Skorsas and Kaninjer carry you, let your life flow freely along all its pathways.” I felt his finger reach in, brushing the cord of my life, and touch the hilt.

All-Spirit… it was not death-cold, but death-hot now, a blade of pure white fire, made up of what was deepest in me. It was sacred, as agony is sacred. It was Chevenga, as much as my bones and my blood. Shininao was suddenly in my eyes, exquisite and purple. Lightning and the certainty of death flashed through all my veins, and I was panting, blinded, the world turning end over end. All-Spirit… it’s done…?

Seize your breath, start counting it again, make the white line. Surya’s voice, so huge, as if I were on truth-drug, like a giant bell tolling. I saw myself in the mirror, so ashen pale I was ghostly even in candle-light.

“I moved it barely a hair’s width,” he said. Aigh! Surya I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this… “You’ve got to ready yourself deeper. You’ve lost the singing wind, bring it in again. Much stronger. Much clearer. Choose this, Virani-e. Claim your power.”

I looked beyond him in the reflection to the people, listened to their voices. Yeolis had their arms raised in prayer; Arkans had their hands cupped at their temples. “All-Spirit infuse him… Muunas, Soul of the Sun Itself, give him strength, give him courage… Ama Kalandris, carry him on your breast…” “We are with you, love,” my mother was saying. “We love you. Let that carry you.”

I seized my breath, counted forcefully. Deeper… how do I ready myself deeper? I did what I knew. Make the white line. Call the singing wind. All-Spirit… God in me… stronger, he said… clearer… let it go. Let it go.

I drew in my confidence, my courage, the love around me. I can do this. I chose this. I need this. “Relax,” Surya whispered again. “Letting go is a giving, a trust. It’s an understanding, that life is not so hard. Relax, and let the life flow through you freely. Let yourself be light, and not stone, within.” I made the white line very strong, heard the two-note song of All-Spirit gust loud.

His finger reached into me again. I held it all, like a tight-rope walker on the rope. I’m doing it… I feel no agony, no death-flash…

“No,” he said. “I can’t even touch it now. Virani-e, you chose this. Don’t unchoose it.”

What? All-Spirit… I wanted to scream, “I’m failing? I’m not used to failing!” The world began going light and dark, and up and down lost some of their distinctness. “No, Virani-e… stay here.” Surya’s voice surged and ebbed. “Stay with us. Breathe.” My eyes cleared enough to see my face in the mirror, a hundred years old with horror and despair.

Surya, I don’t know how! I screamed in my mind. If I knew which way to push, I would push with all my might! If I knew what move to make, I would make it whole-hearted. I don’t! I don’t! I had no feel for how to struggle for this, and no one was telling me. I began to despair more deeply; I felt tears of anger on my cheeks; then lightheadedness again. I have to tell him. “S-s-surya...” My voice was broken with sobbing, pathetic, as I’d despise myself for anywhere else. “I don’t know how… I don’t know what to do.” I looked at his reflection, hoping to see mercy in his face.

He was not looking at me. He and Azaila were glancing at each other, and clear as day they exchanged the thought, “Perhaps we were wrong, and he is not ready.”

All-Spirit… what does that mean? I have to schedule the whole thing again… for when I am, whenever that is… after the vote, of course it will be after the vote, so they’ll vote knowing I failed… Still, the massive relief in the idea was viciously tempting. Life… not so hard?

“Kyashin kevyalin,” spat a deep voice behind me. I heard booted running steps. A pair of hard hands, one of them thumbless, seized my face between them. Esora-e put his tear-streaked face nose-to-nose with mine.

“This is my shit,” he hissed. “My mother’s, my grandfather’s. I put it in you. Let it go, my son, my love, my beautiful child, throw it out of you. I give you permission.” More tears broke from his eyes, runnelling his cheeks, but he kept his voice steady. Everything froze utterly still and silent, as if the world were suddenly in amber. I heard nothing but his words, and black-chasm silences between them.

“You don’t deserve this. I wronged you. I wished too much shit on you. I call it all back. You deserve much better, you deserve every good thing in life, every mercy, every pleasure. All the love I ever turned to anger, all the love I twisted in envy, all the love I ever kept locked inside and so denied you, I give you now, Chevenga. Let it go, love. Let go what you never should have had to take in. Let it go, Virani-e, as we all love you. Let it go and be free.” He pressed his lips to my forehead.

There was a soundless tension in the air all around me, as around a tree just before lightning strikes it. Surya… seeing my aura… I felt the reach and the grab and then the world went death-black and sun-white at once.

Virani-e, look! I am thrown off the earth, end over end. I am dying, I am living, I don’t know, it is light, it is dark, I am inside out and everywhere and nowhere Chevenga look! See it! Open your eyes! See it! Surya yelling… Where are my eyes? Torchlight, a mirror, Esora-e’s hands, screaming, it’s my screaming, a momentary scream but time’s slowed down Go by weapon-sense, but then look! A sword, I felt the hissing zhring as it was drawn, above me…

I opened my eyes. My head was thrown back so the ceiling was before me, and Surya’s hand, holding—me. My soul. That’s me. I have a curve like Chirel’s, dark gleaming steel but showing the ceiling through like a ghost’s body, dripping blood, but the blood is blood-red light, faint against the darkness… “Virani-e, see!”

He opens his hand. It smokes away into nothing with a faint fading hiss. It cannot be me. I’m down here. Sharp stink of fear-shit, like at the beginning of a battle, but too close. The world falls away into darkness, the smell the last thing to vanish.

†

This is your reality. Breathe in acceptance. I lay like liquid. Pleasure between my legs drew me out of the dark. I recognized Surya’s touch, impersonal but intense. My hips were moving. “He needs to be tied back to life again,” he was saying. “Right now.” His other hand was on my forehead. I wasn’t sure where any of the rest of me was. “Breathe in acceptance,” he said. “Give yourself to it.”

I was still on the dais of the gathering room of the School of the Sword, and everyone was still there, watching. It didn’t matter. I had let go, of everything. In utter giving, I rose, like a moyawa on the thermal breath of All-Spirit. He tied me back to life. I flew on the wings of it. The come was like the Earthsphere shattering. With my seed went the last of my strength. I closed my eyes and all my muscles went loose. “Rest, Virani-e,” Surya said, only his hand on my forehead keeping the voice tied to him in my mind. It was drifting. I vaguely felt myself being shifted onto a litter, and nothing more.

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191 - By my choice I was stripped

He led me into the gathering room. Those closest to me, my loves, my old-enough children, my parents, my other family, my healers, my friends, all sat tense, falling into silence. The walls were decorated with wide white ribbons, with the rya/kya circle in black. I smelled the fragrance of a censing just finished. There were a few things on the dais, including an armour stand, but I didn’t look closely.

“Take off the sword,” Azaila whispered to me. Is this… is this it? I’ll never wear it again? As I unslung it, I felt as if I were taking myself apart. He slung it on his own shoulder, though, and stayed close, as if he meant to give it back. “Take off each thing you’re wearing as I touch it,” he whispered, then cleared his throat and faced the people.

“First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e comes today, to go asa kraiya, to cease being a warrior,” he said, in the voice he has that is quiet and yet somehow carries clearly to the back of the room. “By his free will, to undergo the ceremony by which one lays down the sword, by which one relinquishes the obligations, and the privileges, of a warrior. To this we are joined together to bear witness.”

He touched my helmet. I took it off and handed it to him, and he set it on the armour-stand. “By his own word, Virani-e comes to this in certainty that it is his choice.” He touched my sword-side greave, and I understood; by my answers to the nine questions I would be stripped.

“He chooses this in full knowledge of its meaning to himself… He chooses this in reasonable knowledge of its meaning to others…” With each piece it got harder. “He chooses this without intention to regret it… He chooses this in acceptance that many will not understand…” My loin-guard trembled in my hands as I gave it to him, enough that I knew everyone saw.

“He chooses this knowing that he will become one of those who will not fight and so much be protected by those who do.” A gasp came out of me and my eyes clenched shut before I could stop it. I was dripping sweat as if I’d been fighting. He touched the shoulder of my breastplate, and helped me unbuckle it as a comrade-in-arms does, his hands expert.

“Virani-e, you need not hold in what you feel,” he whispered to me. “Let it out. It is part. Cry the tears, speak the words. You can throw up or even shit, if you want to. All will be cleansed.”

I wasn’t going to throw up or shit—yet—but I couldn’t hold back the sobs. Speak the words? I am destroying myself. I am destroying Yeola-e, too, perhaps. Am I going to say that?

“He chooses it knowing that it means he will have to refuse if he is called upon to help defend Yeola-e,” Azaila said, over my noise, and touched the toes of both my boots with a warrior-graceful motion of his bare foot. Wait, stop, hold, slow down… The ceremony would go on, as relentless as a glacier. I chose this… I chose this…

“He chooses it by the urgings of the God-in-Him.” My under-tunic; it was dripping. Why can I not hear the singing wind? Maybe it was the opposite urge; maybe it’s the death in me…

“He chooses it for the reason that it is his wish.” He touched the last things left: my wristlets.

The world began fading in and out as I started to pull the shield-side one off. You didn’t say anything about passing out… will you catch me? I split apart then, everything becoming surreal, which made it easier to take off the sword-side one.

I was already shaking with terror; now cold seized me as well. He handed me back Chirel. “Make your farewell. Speak freely, Virani-e.”

I’d gone down to my knees and half-doubled over as if I’d been stabbed, before I knew it. I pressed the scabbard to my face, while the part of me that was distant had the absurdly-rational thought, ‘If I get tears on the blade I must wipe them off so they don’t rust it.’ Speak the words… “Azaila… I don’t know… if I can do this… I feel… as if I am destroying myself.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said gently. “Everyone feels that way. I did.” That froze my fear silent, for long enough to draw. That reminded me; I had already said farewell to it, in the sincerest way I could. One does not speak to a piece of steel. But there were words, that I needed witnessed.

“There is no sword in the world like this one,” I said. “I can’t tell you… how much I love it. It has been my life, and it has been my power. The idea of never touching it again…” I couldn’t speak for sobbing. When I’d dashed away the tears enough to see, I saw Kall and Skorsas both fighting the urge of Arkan civility, to look away, but both wet-cheeked themselves. They feel they are seeing something beautiful die, I thought. Kall was in the duel, and Skorsas in the Mezem. I suspected Minis, whose eyes shone more than usual, was there too.

My shadow-father was sobbing unrestrained, both hands clutching his forelock. He’s blaming himself, I thought. There were many other shaking shoulders and shining cheeks as well. Fifth stared at the sword in a kind of wide-open wonder; he would next see it in his room on the day of his wristletting.

“But I have been blessed far more than most, to have been given it to carry at all,” I whispered. “So… no reason for sadness…” I kissed the blade, and sheathed it, and held it out to Azaila. Loosening my fingers from the grip was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I’ve done it, I thought, standing naked. Why am I suddenly twice as afraid? Azaila was behind me now; he wrapped a dark cloth around my eyes. “Remember what you told me, when I gave you your wristlets, about what they meant?” he whispered. “Tell me, to remind yourself.”

“That I would do terrible things,” I whispered. “The price of carrying Chirel was using it.” That it brought all home, dispelling the sense that I was destroying myself. I was leaving that behind. It’s all just feeling, a wiser voice in me said. That didn’t lessen the fear in the slightest.

“Be cleansed, Virani-e,” Azaila said. I was washed then, by gentle hands, I don’t know whose, but they were very thorough and cherishing at once, as if I were a priceless sculpture being rescued from an eon’s dust. They did it three times, first with icy water, then with tepid, then with hot. Somehow it made me feel more naked, as if I had no skin at all. “Now kneel, here.”

I did. When he took the blindfold off I was facing away from the people, and three of the elders were before me in a part-circle, each holding a great mirror, so I saw myself kneeling, naked and wet, scarred all over and pale with terror, three times over, with Azaila standing at my back, and the faces of those I loved gazing at me beyong. Those mirrors would not be here, I could not help but think, if I had never been a warrior.

“Look,” he said. I did. Who am I? When it comes down to it… Then his hand was across my eyes, startling me, touching a childhood memory. I felt the hair stand on the back of my head, and my heart was suddenly pounding harder in my throat than it had been already. “Look,” he said again.

The reflection straight ahead was the same, but the one to my shield-side was a child: myself at thirteen, newly-wristletted, his unflawed face still young enough to be a touch cute, haunted with what he had just learned. The one to my sword-side, I could not turn my eyes away from once I saw him: an old man of proud bearing, his snow-white hair thin on top but falling in curls over his shoulders, and in his face, my eyes; then I saw on his sinewy wrinkled body the scars I already had, whitened by decades. My selves of past and present I forgot, for staring at myself of the future.

What had he lived, what expressions had he worn the most, to grave them on his features for me to read? There was a furrow between the thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows, but not much deeper than the one I already had, and crow’s feet that extended almost to his hairline. From laughter? His expression now was grave and calm, one I knew how to do already, for ceremonies, but in his eyes, which met mine steadily, I saw a touch of a smile, and affection, and sympathy. My younger self; how hard it was for you, when you hadn’t yet learned to stop bashing your head against rocks.

Then Azaila lifted his hand, and the mirrors with their reflections were gone.

That’s it and now I can just get drunk… phew. Is that allowed in the maesa asa kraiya? “Stand up,” Azaila said. “There is another sword to take your leave of.” He stretched his arm towards the room with the sword of Saint Mother.

Inside, it was pitch dark; someone had blown out the candles. I walked carefully, having this sudden odd sensation that I was on the edge of a cliff, and I might fall forever into the dark if I lost my balance. I found the sword by weapon-sense, feeling its straightness, its dull edges, never used, its ancientness. I wrapped my hand around the grip, that was worn by the hands of a thousand years of war-students.

As I had twenty-three years ago, I lifted it. The weight was so much less to my muscles, so much more to my spirit. I held it for a moment, then gently committed its weight back to the chains.

“That.” I jumped. Who spoke? The room was no longer entirely dark, half-lit by a light that was not, the way a reflection on water does not show what you are truly seeing. My hair stood on end again, the way it does in the presence of a ghost. An old woman sat on the far side of the sword, the hair escaped from her braid forming a frizzed halo around her face. “What’s that, without a hand wielding it?” She snorted. “Feh. Only a piece of steel.” She raised a hand to brush her hair away from her face then gazed at me over spectacles, with a smile. “Not so much to lose, by putting it down.” Then she was gone.

Yeola. What did I do, to earn such a blessing… or does that happen with everyone, too? In the dark I stood with her words ringing silently through me.

I took a quivering breath. I should go back to the gathering room, since my loves were there; we’d head back together to the house—the water-room, the hot tub, oh perfect joy—to celebrate. I’ve survived it. But tingles went through me, as if there was still something to fear. Azaila beckoned me.

Now Surya, Skorsas and Kaninjer were on the dais, as was the elder with the centre mirror. Kaninjer wore his full double white stripes, fitting perfectly. I was suddenly trembling again, and my heart hammer-banging in my temples and throat and chest. “Kneel here,” Azaila said, meaning before the mirror. The world wanted to turn end over end; I was half-blinded with it. I knelt. Kaninjer stood against me on the sword-side, and took my sword-arm firmly in both of his; Skorsas did the same on the shield-side.

In the mirror I saw who came up behind me; Surya, not Azaila. “Deep breaths,” he said to me. “Make the white line. Strong as you can.”

He laid his hand feathery-tender on the back of my neck.

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