by J. C. Hendee
Fiáh’our looked up in mild shock and found the young shirvêsh watching him sternly.
“Two days and nights of bartering?” Gän’gehtin added. “And you think I could not guess that you have bartered too deeply this time? Do not think me a fool, and do not act like one! If nothing comes of our efforts here, at least you might erase some losses amid the shame of broken apprenticeship. Better that than a pointless death for him… or you.”
Fiáh’our kept his tight grip upon the pebbles, for indeed he would owe deeply for them and their secrets, some of which he did not even know and only hoped to find someone who did. He would not show those to even his friend and spread that debt beyond himself.
“Yes,” he finally answered. “As you say.”
Gän’gehtin appeared to relax a little. “So what is next… for your apprentice?”
Fiáh’our wearily shook his head.
Gän’gehtin hefted up his sparring weapon. “Then get some rest and sleep, as you advised, and I will meet you here at dawn… again.”
It was a while longer before Fiáh’our left the training hall. When he did, he stalled at the temple proper. With no one else there this time, he stepped in all alone. What was he to do about Karras, a wayward young rughìr, who had taken up as a sea trader of all ridiculous things?
Fiáh’our leaned against the temple’s rounded inner wall and sank all the way to the floor. He stared up into the heights at the stone statue of Skâpagi—“Shielder”—the Guardian, with a kóskä on one wrist—what humans would mistake for a buckler—and a great round shield around back. And the tall shape of a great iron-ribbed cudgel was gripped in the Bäynæ’s other hand.
“Help me,” Fiáh’our whispered.
It was not a plea to the one Bäynæ of this temple, but to all of them that he knew of, or any who might have faded in ancient times and been forgotten.
“Help me,” he whispered again. “And please, I beg you, no pranks this time.”
6. The Heart of What is the Matter
Karras awoke in his quiet room at the clan réhanâkst after three more days in the temple. Though he no longer ached as much in flesh, having toughened under training, futility began to numb his mind—and his heart. Nothing truly mattered to him anymore.
Once he put on his training armor, and had walked into the hall again, he almost said as much. Perhaps lacking hope for anything else made him go on, but this time Fiáh’our stepped aside and only watched as Gän’gehtin handled the sparring.
Karras puzzled little over this, only thinking that the old blusterer was close to giving up, and Karras himself might not have to say anything. But it all grew worse than before in the number times that he hauled himself up off the thick timbered floor.
The last time, a few hardwood scales broke off his armor. With a heavy sigh, Gän’gehtin kicked the scales aside, closed his eyes for an instant as if tired, though he was not even perspiring. He glanced away but did not look directly at the thänæ.
Fiáh’our said nothing, and Gän’gehtin drew a slow breath.
“Again,” the shirvêsh said, and so it went on three more days for Karras.
· · · · ·
Fiáh’our could only watch as Karras failed even more. In that past afternoon, seven days before, when he sat until nightfall in the temple proper, he had gained no inspiration from the Bäynæ about how to help the kitten… how to find any en’nag in this hopelessly astray little rughìr. He had stared up for so long at the statue of Skâpagi that eventually his mind had wandered.
There was little in the statue’s features to match any living shirvêsh that he knew, but it brought to mind old days when he had dealt with a poisoned heart and mind. Gän’gehtin had wanted to fight, to kill… too much.
The young rughìr had come to Háttê’mádzh first, for this temple was where his mother had served. It had not taken long for the rotund head shirvêsh to lose all humor and cast the young hothead out. That so rarely ever happened in any temple, let alone all three for the warriors among the Bäynæ.
One night, Fiáh’our had come to see Háttê’mádzh and learned from his old friend that this dismissed brief acolyte had been rejected outright at the other two warrior temples as well. The head shirvêsh then related that he had actually been relieved upon hearing this, for he felt Gän’gehtin was unsuited to life in this temple.
Fiáh’our had never met Gän’gehtin, but he did not like what he heard.
He asked that Háttê’mádzh allow the outcast to return, and he would see if something could be done for the young one. The head shirvêsh refused at first, more than dubious at such a weak notion, but out of friendship he finally, reluctantly agreed. The two together had set to dealing with the problem of Gän’gehtin.
Here and now, it shamed Fiáh’our that he could not find a way to do the same for Karras. On this seventh day, he again called an early halt to this worthless waste of effort… or the lack of effort on Karras’ part.
At first, both Gän’gehtin and Karras stared at him. Then the kitten turned and left without a word, and the shirvêsh appeared relieved.
Gän’gehtin drew near, and though calm and quiet at first, Fiáh’our saw the spark of very old fury in his young friend’s eyes.
“Is it enough yet?” Gän’gehtin whispered, though he grew more vehement by the word. “Will you not let go now? Will you face that all this will get him nowhere, whatever reason you had for taking him on? Karras is not suited to your calling, and it is only your arrogance that keeps you from seeing this!”
Fiáh’our’s hopelessness peaked and pushed him out of good sense. He lashed out likewise at his last student of bygone days. What followed were the bitterest words either had ever spoken to each other, at least since that first day a younger Gän’gehtin had returned to this very training hall to face a thänæ he had never met and the stern and reluctant glare of Háttê’mádzh.
“No more!” Gän’gehtin finally shouted in Fiáh’our’s face. “Stop being a fool and accept your losses. I will not let you do this to him anymore… by my oath as a guardian, you will cease!”
Fiáh’our’s fury had grown too hot, but he became instantly still and quiet in seeing the same in Gän’gehtin’s eyes. More than that, all of their noise attracted too much attention.
Two other shirvêsh stood watching warily from the western archway off to Fiáh’our’s right. Beyond and behind Gän’gehtin, clusters of wide-eyed little acolytes, with gaping little mouths, peeked in around both sides of the southern archway.
Háttê’mádzh appeared there as well.
The head shirvêsh quickly shooed off the acolytes, dismissed the other two shirvêsh with a sharp gesture, and then stepped in. His hardened eyes first settled on Gän’gehtin’s back, who stood half turned in facing down Fiáh’our.
The bottom end of great cudgel in Gän’gehtin’s rearward hand rested by his rear foot, but he gripped it low at the mid-point, ready to bring it around in an instant. He was breathing slow but hard and never took his eyes off Fiáh’our.
Háttê’mádzh turned his glare that way as well. “What is this?” he demanded. “Answer me… both of you!”
Gän’gehtin still said nothing.
Neither did Fiáh’our as he looked into his former student’s eyes. All that fury of the past was there, and it suddenly sparked a half-formed and terrible notion.
Aside from that, Gän’gehtin had not been wrong in what he claimed. Fiáh’our knew his old student—and all shirvêsh of Skâpagi—well enough.
Most of all among rughìr warriors, they stood for peace and for those who could not themselves protect their right to peace. They were forbidden to initiate combat, which might have been the only reason the furious young shirvêsh had not called Fiáh’our out in the moment. But the “guardians” were known to have even entered ongoing battles and face both unyielding sides in an attempt to end the conflict. There was nothing short of their own deaths that could make them yield once they took a stand. In
some ways, they were the best of the warrior’s ways.
In the past to be remembered, Gän’gehtin had re-entered the temple of Skâpagi with all his anguished fury escaping his heart and eating away his mind with hate. Fiáh’our, along with Háttê’mádzh, had banished that fury from the young one’s head, if not his heart, and turned it to a worthy purpose. But the way it had begun was a horrid way to teach, and there had been moments that even now Fiáh’our wished he could forget.
Gän’gehtin had wanted nothing else but an enemy to battle.
Fiáh’our gave the young one that enemy in himself.
But Karras did not want to fight.
There was no effort, no desire… no fire in the kitten’s heart, let alone his head where it should not be. Even the latter would have been better than his apathetic efforts, and it had been this way from the beginning and only worsened.
Fiáh’our looked upon the weapon in Gän’gehtin’s hand, the great sparring cudgel formed fully out of hardwood instead of the iron and oak of a true studìhallû. And he held out his hand.
“Give it to me,” he said.
Gän’gehtin faltered, perhaps suspicious. Háttê’mádzh took a harsh step in behind his young shirvêsh, but before he could command…
Fiáh’our whispered, “Please.”
Gän’gehtin frowned but slowly handed over the weapon.
“Come again tomorrow at dawn,” Fiáh’our added.
Gän’gehtin whirled to leave, but Háttê’mádzh snatched him hard by the shoulder. Hardwood scales on the younger shirvêsh’s armor crackled in that grip. Before the head shirvêsh uttered a reproach, Gän’gehtin lowered his head.
“Master, I apologized for breaking the serenity of the temple,” he said, but then his voice hardened as he glanced over his shoulder toward Fiáh’our. “But I do not apologize for living by our oaths!”
Puzzlement marred Háttê’mádzh’s anger as he looked to Fiáh’our. He released Gän’gehtin, who left in silence.
“Explain,” the head shirvêsh demanded.
Fiáh’our slowly shook his head. “Gän’gehtin is right… he has nothing to apologize for, at least in his intent. All that I can say of it is that I beg forgiveness for disturbing this place. I will not let this happen again.”
After a great sigh, Háttê’mádzh shook his head. “Please see that you do not.” And then he left as well.
Fiáh’our lifted up the great cudgel. The possible solution to the problem of Karras was one he disliked and perhaps feared.
He flipped the sparring cudgel over, its ridge-less end upright, and marked that half with his thumbnail at a two grip’s width below the ridges. Then he turned to a bench near the wall to retrieve his oldest friend, his axe that he had named Burskâp… “Shield’s Edge.”
Fiáh’our placed the great cudgel across the bench and severed it roughly on the mark in one stroke. The bench nearly shattered under the blow.
“Oh troublesome Bäynæ,” he whispered, “what a harsh answer you give old Fiáh’our when he asks for a simple bit of help.”
7. Fire in the Core
When Karras returned the following morning, he found Fiáh’our and Gän’gehtin standing far apart in the training hall. The shirvêsh had his back turned to the thänæ. Fiáh’our, with one hand tucked in his belt and the other behind his back, looked so grim and silent that Karras knew the old man had had enough… and so had he.
Shame and dishonor for a failed apprenticeship did not matter. Neither did the certainty of an arranged marriage he had held off but could no longer escape. Fiáh’our was too stubborn to admit that all that had been tried—forced—within this place amounted to nothing.
“Blame me, if you like,” Karras said, “as it makes no difference. I am done with all this.”
The thänæ said nothing, and in fact, did not react at all, but the shirvêsh stared at Karras in shock. Gän’gehtin appeared to relax with a heavy breath, as if relieved.
“You are done when I say so,” Fiáh’our declared.
Karras flushed cold inside and then heated up. Gän’gehtin tensed all over and turned quickly, as if he might go at the old man, there and then.
“But I will give you a way out,” Fiáh’our added.
“You do not have anything to give me,” Karras returned. “I am leaving now!”
And he turned to do so.
Gän’gehtin shouted “No!” an instant before Karras heard the clatter of heavy wood coming at him from behind.
He tensed and weaved aside like in a squall, when cargo or equipment broke loose and slid across the family ship’s deck. The heavier end of a sparring cudgel, somehow broken off below the ridges, came tumbling across the hall’s floor. He quickly hopped further aside before it struck his shins.
Karras looked up and found that Fiáh’our had crossed half the hall.
“Pick it up!” the old man commanded.
Gän’gehtin closed from behind and snatched Fiáh’our by the arm. The thänæ turned and struck in an instant, the flat of his hand slamming the shirvêsh’s chest. Gän’gehtin barely gasped, though he leaned back sharply under the force.
“Do not forget your place again!” Fiáh’our warned. “This barter is not yours to meddle in. Remember that!”
The look on Gän’gehtin’s broad face might have been a sudden hate as Fiáh’our turned back to Karras.
“Pick it up,” he repeated.
“No,” Karras answered.
“Then you go nowhere,” Fiáh’our returned. “And if you try sneaking away, I will hunt you right to the feet our clan elders, if need be. They will see such a breach a little differently than you do.”
Karras looked down at the broken cudgel… or had it been chopped off below the ridges?
“I will not fight you… you old fool.”
A mean-eyed grin spread the old man’s beard. “You do not have to defeat me… or anything so unlikely for the likes of you. All you need do is strike me, just once.”
Karras stared; the old madman had truly gone mad.
“If you can,” Fiáh’our added. “And then I will release you from your father’s barter and apprenticeship… and the dishonor will be all mine.”
Fiáh’our turned and fixed on Gän’gehtin. “Instruct him. Or have you forgotten how to use a broken weapon as well as your place?”
Gän’gehtin glanced at the severed cudgel, silent for an instant. “It is not suitable for—”
“It is!” Fiáh’our snapped. “More so for what he will use in the end!”
Through all of this, Karras stared in disbelief.
Gän’gehtin closed his eyes in a slow blink, opening them to only slits in eyeing Fiáh’our. He slowly rounded the old man, coming for Karras, as Fiáh’our went to the wall covered in sparring weapons.
“I am not doing this,” Karras whispered.
Gän’gehtin picked up the severed cudgel. “All you need do is clip him once. Scrape his hand or jab him in the leg or… anything, anywhere, and this is over. Do you understand? It will finally be over, by my witness, and you can leave.”
Karras was too tired to argue, as well as growing angrier. Everything with the old man was a battle, one way or another.
“Show me,” Karras exhaled.
Gän’gehtin finished placing Karras’ hands on the severed cudgel and quickly showed him what to do. Karras tried to remember, and then the shirvêsh stepped aside to retrieve a spare helmet. Karras had not bothered to bring his own or don his training armor this morning; he had never expected any of what happened now. When he dropped his head, so Gän’gehtin could settle the helmet, and then looked up…
Fiáh’our stood waiting at the floor’s center, but he did not have his sparring axe. Instead he held a head-high ribbed cudgel.
The old man had never picked up anything but a sparring axe in all of their time in the temple. That he held instead that much longer weapon was not good compared to the short one in Karras’ hands.
Karras had
not even grazed the old man in more than a moon. He had barely clipped Gän’gehtin twice too weakly, and both times he had been flattened an instant later. And now he did not even have any armor.
It did not matter. If he ended up beaten and broken, he would take that to get free of the mad thänæ, that bane of his life, by just one meager hit.
· · · · ·
Fiáh’our stood waiting as Karras took a first hesitant step.
He did not like what he did now, but the kitten needed to stop thinking about other things, like his supposed loss of Skirra, and start doing. Perhaps in being clouded by fury, something that should have been inside of him might yet surface… something all rughìr understood instinctively from their first toddling steps.
Something that Karras’ seafarer ways had washed out of his bones. But worse was that Karras did not look angry enough.
There was no fire in the kitten’s head, where it should not be, yet where Fiáh’our needed it now. This was going to take longer and be that much harder on the kitten than Fiáh’our had first hoped.
“Why hesitate?” he barked. “Waiting for me to drop from old age and save you the trouble?”
Gän’gehtin almost lunged in. “Karras, do not let him—”
“Silence!” Fiáh’our shouted.
Gän’gehtin held his tongue and his place with much fury in his eyes, as long ago, and now in ignorance of what was needed here. Fiáh’our still saw nothing of its kind in Karras’ eyes.
And the kitten made his first feinting charge for a swing.
It was like some human sailor’s jig and a hop, and Fiáh’our did not even lift the cudgel’s butt end from the floor.
He swept its high, thick end across, knocking Karras’ half-cudgel aside. As the kitten tried to weave away on his momentum, Fiáh’our turned in finishing his sweep. His cudgel’s butt end came up and around and cracked Karras across the back. As the kitten yelped and went stumbling headlong toward the hall’s rear…
Fiáh’our cringed but quickly suppressed reluctance.
So it went on—and on—until sweat darkened and matted Karras’ hair, bled through his clothing in stains, and ran down his face as he panted. All the while Gän’gehtin stood stiff and clenched in watching, breathing almost as hard as the kitten.
