Griots

by Charles R. Saunders

  “We are all students,” said Nkati as he returned his instruments to their cubby.

  “You sound like Nemisa,” she said, hopping down from the small exam platform.

  “Mosuoe Nemisa,” said Nkati, “is wise.”

  #

  Sekadi’s second attempt to kill the big male came between strategy class and her reporting for punitive scullery duty, the result of comments she’d made during Mosuoe Okosi’s lecture on lowland ambush scenarios.

  The big male was moving through the seventy-seven battle stances in the smaller outdoor practice ring, apparently oblivious to the world around him.

  Sekadi leaped out at him hoping to catch him around the throat with the garrote she’d improvised from her boot ties.

  Just as she was about the bring the loop down, the big male spun away swinging one arm up into her stomach and knocking her to the ground.

  Sekadi sat where she fell, wheezing, while the big male continued on with stances sixty-three thru seventy-seven, never once acknowledging her presence.

  * * *

  Her third attempt on the big male’s life came after scimitar drills and involved a borrowed long sword, some spark stones and a length of iron chain. It too failed and Sekadi spent a good deal of the rest of her life trying to block the incident from her mind.

  After that abortive try she was ordered off the grounds until evening meal.

  * * *

  As she gazed down on it from her high perch, Sekadi considered the Temple of the Ochre Blade.

  It stood in the lee of the mountains that grew up out of a great salt plane the locals called the Shield of Jakuta. It consisted of five large stone buildings arranged in a rough semicircle around two smaller ones set side by side.

  Three of the large buildings were for sparring and the study of the various martial forms. One was the novice dormitory, the final the Mosuoes’ cloister. The smallest buildings were the armory and the Pilgrim’s quarters. Sekadi wondered on occasion why the quarters had not been converted to something more useful– say an armory for modern weapons.

  Pilgrims never came this way anymore. That practice was older than the mosuoes, even the temple itself, and it was finished. The Gods were either dead or so concerned with their own private squabbles that they had little time left to answer prayers. Heroes rode the Great Beasts now as steeds instead of killing them and battled against opponents neither the mosuoes nor most of their students would ever see.

  The Shadow Trolls– the thrice-cursed Vanir– even current allies like the Brotherhood of the Storm, had provided a quality of sport far outmatching any found in dusty tales.

  There had been rumors of a war in the offing. She’d heard the eager chatter around her father’s table whenever her older brothers and sisters returned from their questing.

  The words “Bifrost” and ”Heliopolis” came up often but Sekadi had no idea what they meant. She did take note of the strange pall that always came over her father once a sibling had gone.

  Hiding in his weapons chest she’d witnessed with her own eyes an actual tear fall from one of his eyes. The sight was so unsettling to her that she’d gasped aloud, alerting him to her presence. He’d punished her for her eavesdropping with a lightning fast cuff to the cheek.

  “Stealth is for cowards,” he’d said as he helped her up. Her father favored the old ways. He didn’t believe in shadow cloaks or spell scrolls or anything but the warrior’s own skill. She doubted he’d ever learned to cast a single battle charm.

  Still, it hadn’t been much of a blow. She’d taken worse from her playfellows and laughed. Indeed, she’d handed out worse beatings more times than she could count. It was as if her father’s heart hadn’t been in it.

  His reticence puzzled her.

  She had been even more perplexed when he’d trundled her off to the Temple of the Ochre Blade for “traditional” martial training. If they really were going to war, she should have been sent to Battle School like idiot cousin Lebo, her siblings and all the other young nobles of her age.

  Learning to conjure thunderbolts in freefall or to turn the fiery breath of an enemy’s dragon back on itself was what she needed, not lessons in the use of oversized carving knives. But father was father and his word was her work. Off she went.

  “Sekadi?” said a voice below her.

  She looked down from her perch, a thin shelf of rock that jutted out from the mountainside. She liked it for the view it gave her of the temple grounds and also because so few of her fellow students would attempt the climb.

  The voice belonged to Kalefo, of course. The little tyro had taken to tracking her whenever he had a free moment, which, apparently, was whenever she had one. He looked like a battle sprite standing there in his white tunic and leggings. His eyes were glittery saucers and his mouth was full of questions.

  Sekadi sighed.

  Kalefo was harmless enough in his way, sort of like a zhor cub; all arms and legs and teeth. He just hadn’t learned yet to take a hint.

  Mostly she tolerated his following and his incessant questions– Why did you hit me, Sekadi? Why don’t you like the crescent blade, Sekadi? How many times did you get scullery duty this week, Sekadi? - and on and on. Today, just now, she had things on her mind, and no time for little boys who could barely heft a sword.

  “What do you want, Kalefo,” she said, not caring.

  “Did you know that Mosuoe Imani is older than Shango’s Gate?” he said in that high-pitched lilt of his.

  “I’m busy, Kalefo,” she said.

  “I told Koyotae,” said Kalefo, ignoring her. “But he said I was either stupid or a liar.”

  “He struck you, I suppose,” said Sekadi. Koyotae was somewhat less tolerant of Kalefo’s endless dissertations.

  Kalefo nodded. “Many times,” he said.

  “Good,” said Sekadi. “Go and tell him that Mosuoe Selemeng keeps a pixie in her weapons cabinet. Perhaps he’ll kill you.”

  “What are you doing, Sekadi?” said Kalefo.

  Sekadi’s hand strayed to a small stone that sat beside her on the ledge. It was jagged on one side and fit her hand perfectly. At the right velocity the stone’s impact against Kalefo’s forehead might knock him cold. She seriously considered testing her theory but the little novice’s question was still in the way.

  What was she doing?

  She’d been at the temple for months now. She knew its layout as well as she knew her own palm print. Yet she’d been sitting on her perch for hours– since just after her third release from the healer’s chambers– missing meals and classes, staring at each of the buildings in succession as if they were the most interesting and unusual structures in the world.

  For the last while she’d been particularly focused upon the Mosuoe’s cloisters. She’d watched the big male and Mosuoe Nemisa enter but neither had, as yet, emerged.

  Sekadi returned the stone to its original place and said, “What does Mosuoe Ibeji say is the first step to beating an opponent?”

  “Um,” said Kalefo. “Pike to the throat?”

  “No, idiot,” said Sekadi, hoping down from her high roost. “The first step to defeating an opponent is knowing him.”

  As the horizon devoured the last of sun, the temple walls, normally a sandy white, seemed suddenly drenched in blood. Sekadi took it as an omen of her mission’s success.

  The big male– shards, she hated having to call him that– was still somewhere inside the Mosuoe’s cloisters either alone or with Nemisa. There was something between them; that was clear. Sekadi was suddenly sure that, if she could find out what it was, who he was, she would be able to best him at last.

  Stealth might be for cowards but it was a damned useful tool for gathering information. Mosuoe Erinle never noticed her crouched behind the massive sculpture of Heru the Hunter that guarded the cloisters entrance. His great crimson-robed figure moved slowly past her and off towards the temple pantry. Erinle had won many battles over the spans but none, apparently, with his stomach.<
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  When she was sure he wasn’t coming back, Sekadi stole into the cloisters through the single open archway.

  There were tales among the novices that the Mosuoe’s cloisters contained forbidden weapons, exotic hidden traps, even the imprisoned soul of the last surviving god. Instead Sekadi found herself creeping though bland clay corridors adorned only with simple torches. Silk draperies hung over every occasional door, their colors corresponding to those of the robes of each Mosuoe.

  The absolute silence of the place made Sekadi’s hackles rise– not in fear but in anticipation of victory.

  Sekadi had once heard Mosuoe Nemisa make reference to the fact that her personal quarters were on the western corner of the second floor. Casting around she was gratified to find a small staircase at the far end of the hall.

  * * *

  The second floor was much like the first– a long corridor with silk draperies on one side denoting entrances to several rooms. Sekadi crept past each in turn taking care that their occupants, if any, noted nothing more from her passing than the tiniest stray breeze.

  Eventually she stood beside the entrance to Mosuoe Nemisa’s room. Only then did she realize she had not thought things through. What could she do now? Not burst in on Nemisa and the big male. Not stand here, exposed to the sight of any master who might enter the hall.

  If stealth was for cowards, what was retreat?

  Sekadi glanced up and noticed for the first time the great wooden beams supporting the cloisters’ roof and which ran the length of the hall. From outside it seemed that the roof’s inner surface was flush with the support beams but, now that she was close enough, she could see that there was some space between. There wasn’t much but maybe...

  Sekadi dropped into a crouch and sprang upward, her powerful fingers finding instant purchase on the beam’s top edge. The only sound was that of the fabric of her tunic and leggings rubbing against each other.

  When she was small her father had delighted in her natural acrobatic skill, calling her 'little tree-cat' and sometimes 'birdcatcher.'

  “One day that speed will be the death of many warriors,” he would say, laughing his barrel drum laugh. Thoughts of those happy days now went through her like a scythe, making her wince. Her father had changed so much since then, become so distant and sad.

  With the grace of the tree-cat whose name she had carried, Sekadi crawled quickly along a crossbeam into the space above Mosuoe Nemisa’s room.

  She was grateful that older novices were required to dress entirely in black. It made blending into the shadows above the room so much easier. As she had been trained, Sekadi matched her breath cycle to the ebb and flow of the natural air currents and cautiously peered down.

  The room was like Mosuoe Nemisa herself, spare in its appointment but with occasional flourishes. Aside from the utilitarian cot, desk and chair there was a small sculpture depicting an ancient warrior in combat with what seemed to be an enormous snake. There were three swords in wall scabbards as well as one archaic scimitar. The remnant of what had once been a clan banner was draped across one wall but it was too torn and stained for Sekadi to determine which house it represented. Beyond those items, Nemisa’s chamber was bare.

  She had barely begun to ponder her next course when she heard a muffled thud from beyond the far wall.

  Sekadi moved on along the crossbeam, surprised to find it continued past the interior wall of Nemisa’s chamber and out over something much larger.

  She had wondered at the odd layout of the cloisters, why the master’s rooms were so small when the building itself was so large. Now she knew.

  The cloister housed a massive sparring room. In fact, it was little more than that. The diminutive living quarters were more of an afterthought.

  Sekadi’s eyes went wide as Kalefo’s when she saw Mosuoe’s Ogun and Oshun going at each other with what looked like heavy chains with blades at their tips. Sekadi had never seen such weapons much less watched two of her masters attempt to slice each other to bits with them.

  There was something else about their sparring which was different from those Sekadi had previously witnessed. There was no form to their battle, no preset attacks or defenses. The masters and their blades were like liquids flowing into and out of each other. And not one drop of blood was spilled between them.

  Oshun’s beauty had turned many a warrior’s head in her youth. Her husband Ogun’s striking figure had been highly prized as well. Now, as they neared dotage, the younger novices made sport of their long union.

  “Do you think they ever join anymore?” someone would say.

  “Not if they have to look at each other,” somebody would reply.

  It was an easy joke. Love and passion were toys of the young, after all. At least the young thought so. Sekadi wondered what would happen to those jibes if her fellows could see masters Oshun and Ogun now.

  Their movements were so much less akin to battle and so much more like a sensual dance that Sekadi was momentarily embarrassed to watch.

  Her eyes, averted from the first spar, drifted to another corner of the room where she found a more palatable sight.

  Mosuoe Nemisa walked in a slow circle around the kneeling form of the big male. He was rigidly holding the position of atonement and, if the tension in his shoulders and triceps was any indication, had been for some time.

  Nemisa was speaking to him, Sekadi could hear that much from where she was, but the tone was too soft for her to lift out individual words.

  Trusting that she would not be heard or seen by those so far below, Sekadi crept slowly along her beam until she was right above her quarry.

  Forcing her pulse to slow she settled down into her haunches to take in the tableau beneath.

  “—but warriors embrace death,” Mosuoe Nemisa was saying. “It is their spur and it is their partner.”

  The big male growled, words maybe, but unintelligible to Sekadi’s ears.

  “You shame her with this grief,” said Nemisa. “Her life had meaning and honor. Your tears wash them both away.”

  “She was my mate,” said the big male. Sekadi detected a tone of defiance in his voice and something else that reminded her strangely of her own father.

  “You have strayed too far from our ways,” said Nemisa. “Raised by humans, mated to one who is not of the Orisha, raising a son outside the Realm . . .”

  “The battle dictates,” said the big male. “The hunter adapts.”

  Mosuoe Nemisa produced some sort of blunt metal rod from the folds of her sleeve and struck the big male hard and fast across the face. Sekadi was barely able to track the motion.

  “Do not quote the words of Eshu to me,” said Nemisa mildly. “You chose your path then as you choose it now. What you steal from your mate is your own doing.”

  Mosuoe Nemisa stopped abruptly to the right of the big male.

  “You nearly killed my student today,” she said.

  “It was an accident,” said the big male.

  “It was a loss of control,” said Nemisa sharply. ”As you are, you are unfit to carry a weapon.”

  “As you say, Mosuoe Nemisa,” said the big male.

  “Such a warrior lives in disgrace,” said Nemisa. ”His life is a worthless husk.”

  “That is why I came to you, Mosuoe.”

  “You do not know why you came to me,” snapped Nemisa. “You are too full of unbecoming grief to know. It is nearly all you are.”

  The big male seemed about to respond to her but kept his peace instead. Noting his internal struggle as well as its result, Mosuoe Nemisa smiled.

  “Good,” she said. “That is a start.”

  She moved closer to the big male then, dropping into a crouch beside him.

  “A warrior without control is an untempered blade,” she said. “One that shatters when an enemy tests it. That is why you came to me.”

  “What can I do?” he said quietly.

  “We all do only what we must,” said Nemisa.

 
“I am lost,” said the big male and, for the first time, Sekadi detected true anguish in his voice.

  “You must find yourself again,” she said.

  Mosuoe Nemisa then walked away, leaving the big male behind, still holding his painful stance.

  Sekadi noted that Mosuoes Oshun and Ogun had finished their dance and were also taking their leave of the sparring arena. Having no wish to sleep where she was or to be caught where she should not be, Sekadi crept back the way she came and made her exit from the cloisters.

  * * *

  Sekadi lay there in the dark, listening. She could hear the other novices’ breath in soft chorus all around her and the gentle rustle of them twisting between sleep and rough sheets but, try as she might, she could not force herself to nod off.

  Her mind was a tangle of questions. Barring the Mosuoes, the big male was perhaps the finest warrior she had ever seen. He had bested each of the other senior novices as easily as he had her– though none of them had been sent to the healer. Yet Mosuoe Nemisa had described him as unfit, as lost.

  And what was all that about his mate not being of the Orisha and humans having raised him? That couldn’t be true, could it? Humans resembled the Orisha, certainly. They had their place in the wheel of Life but they were little more than animals. The idea that one of the Orisha might mate with one of them, might actually marry one...

  No. It was too much. She could not puzzle it. Eventually her body won the battle against her swirling thoughts, allowing the demons of sleep to drag her down.

  * * *

  Kalefo found her the following day, taking her ease in the shade of the Pilgrim's quarters. Morning had been filled with sword drills and an interminable lecture on the logistics of tunnel warfare after which Sekadi had stolen away from the others to consider her next move against the big male.

  “What are you doing, Sekadi?” said Kalefo.

  “Right now?” said Sekadi. “Trying not to kill you.”

  “Mosuoe Oshun says you always drop your left shoulder when you parry,” said Kalefo.

  “Mosuoe Oshun is wise,” said Sekadi.

  “She says it’s because you’re too small for the crescent blade and you should stick with the sword,” Kalefo went on.