Way of the Sword

by Blaze Ward

  Behnam took a drink and finished her glass as Mina finally centered herself again. Behnam had seen Farouz and Rence do something similar enough to understand the signs.

  “I’m staying on this station for a few days,” Behnam said. “Tower Four in the penthouse. After you have read Javier’s letter, of which I know nothing at all, I would like to speak with you again, if you are interested in possible employment.”

  Behnam smiled and slid backwards off the stool, nodding to the tall woman as she turned and made her way out, then nodding to Farouz as well as she did.

  It was an interesting way to recruit someone, baiting a trap with curiosity, but Suvi had suggested it, and Behnam had been willing to try.

  Would a paladin like Wilhelmina Teague bite?

  Mina had retreated to her ship after the Khatum and her two, silent bodyguards had left. The male had a walk like the deadliest humans she had ever encountered, smooth and effortless with feet perfectly flat on the ground at all times, ready to push off in any direction and unleash savage destruction in the blink of an eye.

  Killer, when Mina rated herself as merely a multi-discipline black belt. She could see Djamila falling in love with the man as well, although Mina had no idea where that would leave Zakhar Sokolov, Djamila’s one true love.

  Not a problem she needed to solve today. She had a letter. An actual, paper envelope with WT on the front and JA up in the corner, written in a sloppy, personal hand. Several pieces of paper inside.

  Her main cabin on the cruiser was dim and almost bare of personal adornment. Mina had always been from the school that kept things spare and simple, rather than cramming every horizontal surface with knick-knacks and every vertical surface with art.

  She curled up her long legs on the sofa and slipped a finger under the seam, ripping it slowly and carefully apart rather than relying on a knife.

  Pictures. A handful of them. Printed on paper in color and then laminated in a way to make them nearly permanent.

  She turned one over and the rear was blank, but she could date and identify them for future historians if she chose.

  Afia, Piet, and several other crew members she had met and interacted with, including Ilan Yu and Kianoush Buday, who had made the original of this exact outfit for her.

  Djamila Sykora, towering above both Zakhar Sokolov and the killer from the bar tonight, with an arm around each and both men pressed up against her. So, they had formed a trio, perhaps, with her in the center? Interesting, considering Djamila’s strict Neu Berne military upbringing.

  Mina felt her breath catch as she hit the last one. Javier and Behnam holding each other, with a screen in front of them that had to be Suvi as the young/old woman would have presented herself in the flesh, had she any.

  Javier had finally grown up. Turned back into the man he might have once been, but for whatever trauma had originally broken him in Concord service and altered the trajectory of his life. She had never asked, but it had been obvious, once you knew what to look for.

  There were lines there that had been absent before, but other lines had vanished from the tortured soul that she had asked to walk deeper into the darkness than any human should have to. Behnam and Suvi had done that for him. Perhaps he and Djamila had also gotten over themselves and their juvenile foibles.

  Certainly all the faces bore the marks of being happier than she remembered any of them being during the two months they had originally been in her life.

  Was she happier now than she had been? Mina spent so much time meditating and being introspective that it was hard to occasionally step all the way outside herself to view her life as it would appear to an outsider.

  And yet... Behnam Shirazi had nailed her square from half a galaxy away, based only on the teachings of Rama Treadwell and the stories of Javier and the others.

  The Way of the Sword. The hardest, narrowest, and perhaps loneliest of the paths Rama had laid out in his lifetime. Defender not of the faith, but of the faithful.

  The faith lived in all who believed, and the Word existed in all good people. Each of the other Ways carried it forward. Scholar. Traveler. Storyteller. Teacher.

  Sword.

  Wilhelmina Teague. Shepherd of the Word.

  Paladin.

  Was she happy? Could she be?

  The last several years had been spent re-acclimating to the new galaxy that had occurred in her absence, and looking forward to today with some amount of trepidation.

  Who would she have become?

  What about Javier?

  Mina took a deep breath and unfolded the letter itself.

  Heya.

  So far, I’ve written this opening and thrown it away seventeen times, trying to find the words that somehow conveyed everything that’s gone down since I saw you last. I gave up and decided to just brain dump onto pappir paper without any corrections, so you’ll have the occasionally misspelled word and such.

  More honest that way. At least I hope so.

  I had plans. Dreams. Running away with you and happily ever after, if that might somehow be possible, but then the future intruded. Navarre happened again. Three times, depending on how you wanted to count it.

  Did even worse things than Tamaz, but also did good things. Better. Something.

  Killled people, but they had it coming. Didn’t kill others when I didn’t have to. Got royally pissed off and blew up a space station at Nidavellir. They absolutely had it coming.

  But somewhere along the way something happened. Fell in love with the most amazing woman, who had seen me at my best and my worst and liked both of them, rare as that could possibly be.

  Her name is Behnam Shirazi, but you might have heard of her as the Khatum of Altai. I am now Javier Aritza, PhD, on the botanical staff at King’s College on Altai. Except I’m not there.

  About the time you’ll be reading this, I should be somewhere close to Ugen, clear the hell over there, not all that far from Earth itself. As far as I know I don’t have any outstanding warrants in that region for anything better than noise complaints and traffic violations.

  Still being me, but now I’m trying to make up for the last quarter century I wasted.

  There’s a storm coming. I can say that to you, because when you were young there were still survivors of the Unification Wars to tell their stories firsthand. The Great War is being forgotten, everywhere I look. All the lessons, anyway. Another one is coming, but I don’t know where or when or how big. The Concord is stepping back. Others are stepping up. Friction will be the best outcome I can imagine, humans being humans.

  So I have to do something about it. I’d invite you to join us, but I know what you were going to do, and I haven’t yet heard any news that your mission was successful.

  I wish you luck finding him. And you. I might have finally found me, and I hope you’ll come visit us on Altai one of these years when I get back from my own mission.

  I can’t save the galaxy. You can’t either. None of us can.

  But that can’t be allowed to stop me from trying.

  I miss you ever third day or so, when I stop running long enough to wonder “what if?” I can see that other life that might have emerged, had you remained with us on Storm Gauntlet. Or I’d made good my original plan to have them all hung by the Concord Fleet in low gravity and be a free man today. Freer. Something.

  I don’t think I’ll ever be free. You are about the only other person I know besides Djamila that will resonate to those words.

  She sends her love, as do all the others who insisted I send along recent pictures of this bizarre, loving family we have turned into.

  I wish you luck finding Rama Treadwell. And allowing yourself to love and be loved in turn.

  Paladins are men and women of the Sword, Wilhelmina Teague. I have never forgotten that about you. And what it did to me to finally understand that about myself.

  Our road will be long, cruel, and painful, but I have gotten lucky so many times I wonder if the Gods have finally gotten o
ver things I had done in my foolish youth to anger them.

  Carry forward with honor and strength, because you are the last of your kind. At least for now.

  Shepherds of the Word.

  Much love,

  Javier

  She was glad the pictures were laminated. Otherwise, Mina’s tears might have damaged them and then she’d have to go to Altai to get replacements. Not that she didn’t plan that eventually, but Mina Teague still had a mission to accomplish, and it would not take her that far around the arc of the galaxy anytime soon.

  Shepherds of the Word.

  She was the last.

  Today.

  There would need to be more, eventually.

  How soon should she surrender her quest for what had finally happened to Rama Treadwell and set out to rebuild the Order back to that glorious thing that had first filled a young girl’s head with dreams?

  Could anyone?

  Should she, if Javier was right and had confirmed her own suspicions about the dark clouds gathering?

  Mina simply didn’t know.

  Worse, what did the Khatum want with her, to have personally, secretly flown all this way to confront her? Mina had no claims on the man.

  Personally, she was surprised Javier had let someone, anyone, in. Holly and Fryda had both eventually gotten tired of bouncing off that steel exterior Javier had kept around himself.

  Behnam Shirazi must be something else again.

  And the woman had mentioned possible employment. After walking into a bar with a pair of deadly assassins in tow.

  What would the supreme, aristocratic leader of an entire planetary system want or need with a traveling pastor five hundred years out of date?

  But Mina already knew that answer. Feared it in ways she could not properly articulate right now, with her emotions so badly scrambled by Javier.

  The Way of the Sword.

  Who could a woman like that possibly need killed that she couldn’t handle herself?

  Mina had slept. Meditated. Done all her katas twice that morning, to ground her back into the reality of flesh.

  Her dreams had been the most bizarre mish-mash of fantasy and nightmare, sometimes all at once.

  She was not dressed formally today. Deck boots in matte black. Dove gray slacks. Soft yellow top shirt with the planetary logo over her right breast.

  Shepherd of the Word, but you had to know what the symbol meant. Who the people were. Why she might wear it.

  To a random stranger on the decks as she walked, it would have about as much meaning as an obscure beer company logo.

  But Mina was only interested in those people who stopped and recognized it. At least today. They would be historians or believers. Either would be interesting people to know.

  At least today.

  She had not even bothered with a pocket stunner as the lift opened and deposited her in front of the penthouse door. The Khatum had quality assassins with her. Mina was not a threat, and nobody else would be allowed to threaten that woman.

  She knocked.

  The male opened.

  He did not move, save his eyes.

  It was like being back at Meehu Platform again. Impersonating a killer named Hadiiye, before Djamila had apparently taken the role and made it hers.

  Mina was tall. 1.9m that looked down on even Javier, to say nothing of this compact killer who barely came up to her nose. As Hadiiye, she had added fourteen centimeter platforms to her boots, until she was nearly Djamila’s height, when she was supposed to be Navarre’s Gun Moll. His replacement for the Dragoon.

  Djamila had more muscles on a leaner frame. Mina had more curves and chest, designed to distract someone with sex appeal, in a hard, lethal environment where those sorts of people mixed the two.

  This killer was beyond everything everything she had ever known. Perhaps he tasted the flavor of her soul as he inspected the shell containing it.

  “Yes,” he nodded, stepping back and gesturing Mina in without another word.

  Mina found herself in an entryway, and then following the man down a short hallway and into a salon.

  The Khatum was there, but not the other killer.

  Mina had read the psychology correctly. Behnam Shirazi was dressed at the high end of casual today. Two women having a chat, rather than paladin and queen. Or whatever this might look like to an outsider.

  “Thank you, Farouz,” she said.

  The man departed so silently he might have simply vanished, had she not been looking at him.

  The woman was seated on a wide, comfortable chair with her legs curled under her in a way that most humans would find painful. She gestured to the sofa.

  “Please,” she said. “Can I get you some tea or something?”

  “Tea would be nice,” Mina decided, sitting. “Green if you have it.”

  She had been expecting the woman to ring a bell or call out. Something.

  Not that the Khatum of Altai would unfold herself from the chair and walk over to stand behind the wetbar sitting in a corner.

  Intrigued, Mina rose and walked close enough to watch.

  Tea Ceremony. All the implements. All the ingredients. There were two bottles of wine visible, and the ingredients to make almost anything non-alcoholic.

  Behnam Shirazi moved with sure hands.

  “I take it from your smile that the letter contained good things?” she asked as she worked.

  Huh? Oh.

  “Mostly, yes,” Mina replied.

  “Mostly?”

  “Five years and the occasional might-have-beens,” Mina admitted.

  “More than occasional,” Behnam smiled warmly up at her. “But for me, he would have been here. He’s said as much more than once.”

  “But I understand why he could not,” Mina said.

  “Oh?”

  “The Way of the Sword,” Mina spoke the words slowly, carefully. As if just those five words summed it all up.

  To an insider, they might.

  “The Way of the Sword,” Behnam repeated, nodding. “He must try to be a hero. I have suggested that the galaxy might take care of itself, but Javier has to try. I understand that, even as it fills me with sorrow.”

  “That he won’t come back?” Mina asked, intrigued yet again by this woman who saw no threat in an ex-girlfriend.

  “That he won’t be able to,” Behnam corrected. “He’ll come back. My fear is that he dies on some quest, but that’s me being greedy and wanting the man for myself.”

  Mina nodded. The Way was hard. Solitary.

  Javier had committed himself to a form of it. That much was obvious.

  The tea was steeping. Perfectly. Mina wondered if the woman was a certified tea master, on top of everything else. That level of mindlessness spoke of zen, rather than just training.

  Achieving perfection of form in meditative motion.

  “Tell me about Rama Treadwell,” Behnam said in a tone that was somehow curious and questioning, while still being a command one would unconsciously obey.

  But Behnam Shirazi was a Khatum, raised from birth and successful now for more than thirty years at the task. She would understand how to manipulate and motivate humans to do her bidding.

  Mina gathered up the pot and two mugs on a tray and carried them back to the coffee table that appeared as though it might transform now into a battleground.

  Or something.

  She poured two mugs and held the one as the heat began to suffuse the cold ceramic.

  “History generally marks the beginning of the Pocket Empires Era in 6516 of the Common Era with the official declaration of the Bagzatly Empire,” Mina thought back to her ancient youth, twenty years and five centuries ago. “What had been a loose network of colonies and associations as the Corporate Wars ramped down suddenly got infected with dreams of Imperium. Wars broke out everywhere as various monomaniacs decided that now was the moment to crown themselves.”

  “Javier expects another galaxy-wide spasm of a similar nature, possibly
within our lifetimes,” Behnam spoke up. “That’s part of the reason I was willing to support him. Anything to blunt or redirect those energies.”

  “Is Altai at risk?” Mina asked, suddenly concerned that all those theoreticals might actually ground into the physical world from the spiritual.

  But Behnam just smiled serenely.

  “No,” she said simply.

  “No?”

  “Before Suvi, there was the possibility that someone like the Concord might be able to do it, were they to send their entire fleet of Warmasters after us,” Behnam said with a wicked gleam. “But much of what supports Altai is trade, so my engineers are looking at building new things like Galleons and Caravels now. Heavily armed merchant ships that don’t need to be escorted in normal times. It cuts deeply into individual profits, but it also significantly reduces overall military spending on hulls, allowing us to lay up ships, or build new warships and put them into storage against future need.”

  “Would Altai under your children or grandchildren become a threat to others?” Mina pressed.

  Behnam shrugged.

  “I will select an heir in a few years and marry the other three off,” she replied with a chuckle. “Well, two. My oldest, Mahmud, never wanted the job and is studying to be a medical doctor. He’s already engaged and plans to open an office upcountry somewhere far away from palaces and megayachts. As to the rest, I cannot even begin to guess where the galaxy will be in a century. My responsibility is to maintain Altai, improve it, and hand that on.”

  Mina fell silent and sipped her tea. It really was lovely.

  “Rama Treadwell was not opposed to violence, per se,” Mina picked up her thread after a moment. “But conquest was wrong. The point of government is to ruthlessly enforce a level playing field whereby all citizens have an equal chance to be happy. However they can define that happiness without hurting others. Something like a maximized utility, but allowing the individual to express that utility, rather than imposing one upon them.”

  “Revolutionary, even today,” Behnam noted.