by Jon Skovron
Red laughed. “I suppose you got me there. Maybe I was a little eager for some action myself.” He turned back to Vaderton. “So why were you supposed to wait for me?”
“She said you’d need a ship, in a hurry.”
“I think my cousin is in Vance Post. I take it you have a ship to get me there?”
Vaderton nodded. “I do. But Yammy was also very clear that before we leave New Laven, there’s someone you have to talk to.”
“Oh?” asked Red. “Who’s that?”
“The Black Rose of Paradise Circle.”
7
The morning after Old Yammy arrived, Hope awoke at dawn and began to meditate, as she had nearly every day since her return to Galemoor. But that morning, unpredictable sounds out in the courtyard kept intruding. Voices and laughter.
Hope tried her best to simply acknowledge the sounds and not get wrapped up in them. It was pretty clear that Old Yammy, Uter, and Wentu were engaged in some sort of activity. She didn’t quite know what it was, though, and when she caught herself trying to figure it out for the fourth or fifth time, she sighed and gave up on meditation.
She slowly stood and walked over to the doorway that looked out onto the courtyard.
It was a sunny day, probably one of the last before the summer ended. The three of them were spread out across the courtyard and appeared to be playing catch with a ball about the size of an orange. Wentu gave it an easy toss, and it sailed over to Old Yammy, who caught it neatly with two hands.
“Oooh! Me!” pleaded Uter. “Throw it to me!” He jumped up and down, frantically waving his arms.
But Old Yammy turned to Hope, nodded once, and threw the ball to her.
Hope caught the ball with her one hand and examined it. It appeared to be stitched-together scraps of black leather from the old tannery.
“Please, Hope!” begged Uter. “Throw it to me!”
Hope threw him the ball. He made what seemed to her a completely unnecessary dive to catch it, then rolled up onto his knees and held it up triumphantly. “I got it!”
“You two continue,” Old Yammy told Uter and Wentu. “I must begin Hope’s training.”
As the old man and the boy continued to throw the ball back and forth, Old Yammy walked over to Hope with her usual, unhurried calm. Her thick scarf flapped in the hard winds that often raked Galemoor in the late summer. Signs of the weather turning to autumn and the cold and darkness that would follow.
“Are you good at math?” asked Yammy as she drew near.
Hope used to think she was exceptional at math, but after seeing Red in action during a game of stones, she knew better.
“Adequate,” she said.
“Then it’s rather amazing how quickly you did all those calculations in your head just now.”
“Calculations?” asked Hope.
“Certainly,” said Yammy. “When you caught the ball, you had to consider trajectory, velocity, and of course take wind speed into account. Quite a lot to work out in only a couple of seconds.”
“But I didn’t do any of that,” said Hope.
“No?” asked Yammy. “So it was luck that you caught the ball?”
“Well, no …”
“Whether you realized it or not, somewhere inside you, those calculations were made. Our heads are not the only parts of our body that have intelligence.”
“Are you talking about instinct?” asked Hope.
“An unflattering name,” said Yammy. “And one that still does not provide the whole picture. That’s my main objection to the way Vinchen train. They presume that the mind is superior to the body. That the body is a base and shallow thing that must be mastered by an indomitable will.”
“Do you know a lot about Vinchen training and technique?” Hope tried to keep the doubt out of her voice, but suspected she was not completely successful because Yammy gave her a knowing smile.
“Your teacher and I would argue about that particular topic endlessly. He was young then, and arrogant, as I suppose most young Vinchen are.”
Not for the first time, Hope wondered just how old Yammy really was. “It’s hard for me to imagine Grandteacher Hurlo as arrogant.”
Yammy nodded. “This was before he accomplished any of the feats he was so famous for. Interesting, don’t you think? That the more he achieved, the less arrogant he became? Worth pondering. But walk with me, Hope. Tell me what you have learned since the last time we met.”
As Hope followed Yammy across the courtyard and out of the monastery, she told her about the trap of vainglory she had fallen into as Dire Bane, and the shame that followed when she realized what she had become. They walked along the path beside the monastery, and she told Yammy about Hurlo’s journal and his unfinished quest to find a new path for the Vinchen. They continued down the rugged, stony trail to the dense forest that lay to the south of the monastery, and she told her about her meditations and contemplation of the quiet moments of nature. Old Yammy was silent through all of it, and when Hope ran out of things to say, the silence remained.
The soil in that part of the island was much too rocky for crops, so the brothers had left the forest alone, entering only now and then to catch small game when the fish and octopuses were scarce. Hope used to spend hours in the forest when she was a girl, and she was fairly certain this was where Uter spent a large part of his time when he was out exploring. There was something about the rocky black crags and gnarled, twisted gray trees that made it seem enticingly creepy.
At last they reached a small, flat clearing in the forest.
Yammy said, “What I find most intriguing about your studies is your contemplation of time.”
“Time? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Your exercises in watching the sunrises, the movements of tides, and so forth. You said it yourself. That during those periods, time feels more elastic to you. Malleable.”
“I’m not sure about malleable, exactly.”
“‘Elastic’ means something that expands spontaneously to fill the available space, doesn’t it? And in a sense, that’s precisely what time does. It expands or contracts to fit the available moment.”
“That … does fit with my observations,” admitted Hope. When she focused on watching a sunset, it seemed to her as if the sun moved with impossible speed. “But that’s merely my perspective. It’s not as if time is actually speeding up.”
“Perhaps you haven’t grasped yet that time is not objective. While it’s muddling things a bit, we could say that everything has its own time. You, me, that bird, and even that rock. We each operate in our own subjective time. Usually, they all flow together. But they don’t have to.”
Hope narrowed her eyes. “What are you suggesting? That I can manipulate my own time?”
“You’re doing it already. You slow yourself down as you watch the sunset. Who’s to say you couldn’t speed yourself up to match, say, a bullet?”
“Impossible.”
Old Yammy looked suddenly sad. “Really? After all you’ve seen, you still think that word has any meaning? Are you so certain of your understanding of the relationship between time and space?”
No matter what else Hope had been in her life, she had always been a good student. So it pained her to see her new teacher look so disappointed. “It’s just … there are physical limitations to, well, everything, aren’t there?”
“There are limits,” agreed Yammy. “I doubt anyone could maintain such speeds for more than a few seconds. But a bullet’s entire existence unfolds in less time than that.”
“Still, it seems so …” She looked helplessly at Yammy. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be difficult.”
Yammy laughed. A deep, throaty sound. “Not nearly as difficult as other students I’ve had. That Brigga Lin of yours, for example. Stubborn as anything. Anyway, Brice told me he saw you slap a bullet right out of the air once. How did you do that?”
“I’m not sure,” admitted Hope. “The first time I did it, it was instinct. I imagine
I was able to do it because of the Song of Sorrows.”
“Certainly that sword is strong enough to turn aside a bullet. But a sword can’t move on its own. So what, other than you, could account for the speed?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how you caught that ball either,” said Yammy.
“If I accept for the moment that it’s possible for me to alter my time,” said Hope, “how would I go about actually developing such an ability?”
Old Yammy gave her a wicked grin that reminded her of Red. “Like anything else. With practice.” Then she drew a revolver from inside her cloak and fired.
Hope’s entire body locked up as the gun went off. A moment later, a tree trunk about four feet away exploded.
“Piss’ell,” Hope wheezed quietly.
“Oh, relax,” said Yammy. “I’m not aiming for you. I don’t expect you to get this on the first try. Or even the tenth try, really.”
“Tenth?” asked Hope. “How much gunpowder do you have hidden in that cloak of yours?”
“Only what’s in the gun. But I didn’t just bring you back here for the scenery. There’s a hidden weapons cache nearby that includes gunpowder. Thank God Racklock didn’t know about it, or he could have blown the entire temple straight to Heaven. Come on.”
Hope followed Old Yammy through the woods for a little while before she asked, “How did you know about it?”
“Shilgo told me about it,” she said offhandedly.
“You knew Shilgo the Wise?” He had been Hurlo’s teacher.
“Oh, I knew him all right.” She gave a coarse chuckle. “I was a bad girl in those days, and Shilgo was not yet so wise.”
“You’re saying that he violated his vow of chastity?” Hope was unable to hide her shock.
Yammy leered at her. “On many occasions. But surely you already know that the best, truest sort of wisdom comes from making mistakes. And as fun as it was, he and I were definitely a mistake.”
Hope had to admit that her own mistakes as Dire Bane, arrogant and grotesque as they had been, certainly taught her a great deal.
“We’ll bring the gunpowder and bullets back to the monastery,” said Yammy as they continued south through the forest. “Perhaps we’ll put that boy of yours to work cleaning and loading the gun. That’s always been my least favorite part.”
“He’s not my boy,” Hope said.
“Oh?” asked Yammy. “Then whose boy is he?”
Hope couldn’t bring herself to say no one’s. It sounded too cruel. And it wasn’t really true either. Hope had originally planned to leave him with someone on Gull’s Cry, but that became impossible when he killed their elder. Not knowing what else to do, she’d just brought him back to Galemoor. She had been alone often enough as a child. She wouldn’t abandon Uter to a similar fate.
“I suppose he is mine, then. For as long as he chooses to stay with me.”
The weapons cache was in a concealed cave at the edge of the forest, near the southern shore. The rock rose up from the ground like a black blister. There was no door on the cave mouth, but the twisted trees grew up in front of it so densely, Hope thought it was likely they had been cultivated to do so.
She and Yammy pushed through the spindly trees, then walked a short way into the cave. Only a faint bit of light made it to the back, but it was enough for Hope to see the outline of several wooden crates, their seams sealed with pitch to keep them airtight. In addition to a box of bullets and small keg of gunpowder, there was a crate of old-fashioned flintlock rifles and pistols, and several crates of sturdy but unadorned swords and knives.
“I’ve never seen Vinchen use short swords,” remarked Hope as she held one up to examine it in the dim light.
Yammy nodded. “They’re used in pairs, one in each hand. It’s a lesser known technique, typically used by Vinchen who favor agility over strength. Wentu knows it, if I remember right.”
“Really? Perhaps we should bring a pair back so he can demonstrate.”
Yammy narrowed her eyes. “I thought you were done with swords.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t still appreciate the form,” said Hope. “Besides, I wasn’t thinking so much for me, but for someone else.”
“Uter?” Yammy looked alarmed.
Hope shook her head. “No, I was thinking of Jilly.”
“Oh?” asked Yammy. “So you haven’t forgotten your promise to the girl after all?”
“I haven’t forgotten any of my promises,” Hope said sharply. “Why would you think I have?”
Yammy looked like she was about to reply, but stopped herself. She carefully tipped over the gunpowder barrel so it lay on its side. “We’ll get the swords another time. This and the box of bullets will be about all we can manage in one trip.”
Yammy began rolling the barrel toward the mouth of the cave. The box of bullets was small, but extremely heavy. Hope found it awkward to pick up with only one hand, and the only way she could carry it was by keeping both arms out in front of her and holding the box in the crook of her elbows.
“It looks like your prosthetic could use some adjustments,” said Yammy as they maneuvered the barrel and box through the trees. “Now that it doesn’t need to be dedicated solely to wielding a sword, perhaps it could be modified for more generalized use.”
“There’s only one person still alive that I trust to fiddle with it, and I have no idea where he is,” said Hope.
Old Yammy nodded but said nothing.
Uter was thrilled with his new job as official gun loader. At first, Hope was nervous about giving the occasionally homicidal boy not only access to firearms, but also the knowledge of how to load them. Yammy insisted that it would be fine, and after watching him closely for the first few days, Hope saw how seriously he took his responsibility. Apparently, as long as there weren’t any sharp edges involved, he wasn’t that interested in the weapon.
So every day, Uter would load the gun and give it to Yammy. Then Yammy and Hope would return to the clearing in the woods. Yammy would fire a shot and Hope would try to watch it. They would repeat that until the gun was empty. Then they would return to the monastery, Uter would load it again, and the two women would go back out again. They did this several times a day for weeks. The barrel and the box slowly grew emptier, but nothing else changed. Hope grew accustomed to the sulfurous smell and the harsh sound, but she felt no closer to achieving what Yammy claimed was possible.
Hope noticed that the impact point of each shot was getting gradually closer. Originally, it had been about four feet to her left. But after a few weeks, she realized it was now three feet away, as if it had been inching over, a little each day. When Hope pointed that out to Old Yammy, the woman smiled sweetly and said, “You can’t just practice forever. Eventually there needs to be some sort of test.”
If that was Yammy’s idea of motivating Hope, it worked. She didn’t really know Yammy all that well. She wasn’t sure a regular person could know her all that well. And Hope couldn’t say for certain that the ageless woman wouldn’t follow through with the threat.
Hope began to push harder on any aspect she thought might help. If her contemplation of gradual movements of nature was what started this, perhaps returning to that would help her in some way. So she began once again to watch the sun rise and set each day. If a true connection between body and mind was necessary, then both her body and mind needed to be perfectly in sync. In his journal, Hurlo had observed that he saw no difference between practicing his sword forms and meditation. She reasoned that attempting to meditate at the same time as training her body would help foster the connection she was looking for. She still refused to pick up a sword, so instead she went back to the hand-to-hand combat forms he had taught her when she was a little girl. She moved slowly, treating it less like combat and more like dance, and she was surprised at the tranquility it brought her. Once she was accustomed to it, she found that hours would pass without her even noticing.
But still, e
ven with all that work, she could not see the bullet as it sped toward its target.
One day, as they stood in the same clearing before yet another session, Hope found herself in particularly low spirits. Oddly, whenever she began to doubt Old Yammy, she found herself instead looking for a way to compliment her.
“I’m impressed with the consistency of your aim,” she said.
Old Yammy shrugged as she examined her revolver. “One of the benefits of a long life is the time to accumulate a wide variety of skills. Shall we begin?”
Hope nodded and moved so that her back was to the tree line and Yammy was about twenty paces away. They had been doing this for over a month now, and the target was only a foot and a half to Hope’s left. She calculated about two weeks before Yammy was aiming directly at her. Would that finally give her the incentive or inspiration she needed to break through this barrier? Or would she just end up with a gunshot wound?
These thoughts rambled around in her mind as Old Yammy lifted the revolver and pulled back the hammer.
“Hope, you’ve got to see this!” Uter popped out of the tree line about a foot to her left.
Then the gun went off.
The world seemed to freeze. Uter was looking at Hope with his bright, excited eyes. Yammy’s eyes, however, had just begun to widen with horror. The gunshot sounded like the endless roar of death itself coming for its victim. Fire and smoke were emerging from the gun along with a small, round piece of metal that was headed directly toward Uter.
Hope reached her arm toward the boy, but it was like pushing through a wall of wet sand. Her body moved with infuriating sluggishness, and the air pressure made it feel like she was being slowly crushed beneath the weight of invisible stone. Inch by inch, her hand drew closer to Uter. He still hadn’t moved. Neither had Old Yammy. But out of the corner of her eye, Hope could see the bullet drawing near, the metal glowing a searing red as it cut through the air.
Finally, her fingers gradually curled around a fold in Uter’s gray smock. Even this action strained Hope’s body to the limit. It felt like she was grabbing hold of something much harder than fabric. Her fingers throbbed with pain as she forced the fabric to move, and it did so grudgingly. By this time the bullet was only a few feet away.
