The Wise Man's Fear Part 105

Celean looked down. Apologetic regret. Embarra.s.sed acceptance. Apologetic regret. Embarra.s.sed acceptance.

Vashet addressed us both. "Injuring another through carelessness is not of the Lethani."

I couldn't see how my beating up a ten-year-old girl was of the Lethani either, but I knew better than to say so.

And with that, Vashet left us alone, walking to a stone bench some forty feet away where another woman in mercenary reds was sitting. Celean made a complicated gesture I didn't recognize toward Vashet's back.

Then the young girl turned to face me, looking me up and down. "You are the first barbarian I have fought," she said after a long moment. "Are you all red?" She lifted her hand to her own hair to clarify her meaning.

I shook my head. "Not many of us."

She hesitated, then reached out her hand. "Can I touch it?"

I almost smiled at this, but caught myself. I ducked my head a bit and bent down so she could reach.

Celean ran her hand through my hair, then rubbed some between her thumb and forefinger. "It's soft." She gave a little laugh. "But it looks like metal."

She let go of my hair and stepped back to a formal distance again. She gestured polite thanks polite thanks, then brought up her hands. "Are you ready?"

I nodded uncertainly, bringing up my own hands.

I wasn't ready. Celean darted forward, catching me flat-footed. Her arm drove out in a punch straight toward my groin. Raw instinct made me crouch so it struck my stomach instead.

Luckily, by this point I knew how to take a punch, and a month of hard training had made my stomach a sheet of muscle. Still, it felt like someone had thrown a rock at me, and I knew I'd have a bruise by dinner.

I got my feet under me and flicked an exploratory kick at her. I wanted to see how skittish she was, and hoped to make her back away so I could get my balance settled and make better use of my longer reach.

It turned out Celean wasn't skittish at all. She didn't back away. Instead she slipped alongside my leg and struck me squarely in the thick knot of muscle directly above the knee.

Because of this I couldn't help but stagger when my foot came back down, leaving me off balance with Celean close enough to climb me if she wanted. She set her hands together, braced her feet, and struck me with Thres.h.i.+ng Wheat. The force of it knocked me over backward.

Given the thick gra.s.s, it wasn't a hard landing. I rolled to get some distance and came back to my feet. Celean chased me and made Thrown Lightning. She was fast, but I had longer legs, and managed to back away or block everything she threw. She faked a kick and I fell for it, giving her the opportunity to hit me right above the knee in the same place as before.

It hurt, but I didn't stagger this time, instead stepping sideways and away. Still she followed me, relentless and overeager. And in her haste she left an opening.

But despite the bruises and the fall she'd already given me, I couldn't bring myself to throw a punch at such a tiny girl. I knew how solidly I could hit Tempi or Vashet. But Celean was such a tiny twig of a thing. I worried I would hurt her. Hadn't Vashet said we were responsible for each other's safety?

So instead I grabbed her with Climbing Iron. My left hand missed, but the long, strong fingers of my right hand wrapped all the way around her slender wrist. I didn't have her in the proper submission, but now it was a game of strength, and I couldn't help but win. I already had her wrist, all that remained was to grip her shoulder and I'd have her in Sleeping Bear before- Celean made Break Lion. But it wasn't the version I had learned. Hers used both hands, striking and twisting so quickly that my hand was stinging and empty before I could think. Then she grabbed my wrist and pulled, las.h.i.+ng out to kick my leg in a fluid motion. I leaned, buckled, and she stretched me out flat above the ground.

This landing wasn't soft, more a jarring flop onto the gra.s.s. It didn't completely stun me, but that didn't matter because Celean simply reached out and tapped my head twice. Signaling that if she'd wanted to, she could easily have knocked me unconscious.

I rolled into a sitting position, aching in several places and with a sprained pride. It wasn't badly sprained though. My time with Tempi and Vashet had taught me to appreciate skill, and Celean's Ketan truly was excellent.

"I've never seen that version of Break Lion before," I said.

Celean grinned. It was only a small grin, but it still showed a glimpse of her white teeth. In the world of Adem impa.s.sivity, it was like the sun coming from behind a cloud. "That is mine," she said. Extreme pride Extreme pride. "I made it. I am not strong enough to use regular Break Lion against my mother or anyone your size."

"Would you show it to me?" I asked.

Celean hesitated, then nodded and stepped forward, holding out her hand. "Grab my wrist."

I took hold of it, gripping firmly but not fiercely.

She did it again, like a magic trick. Both of her hands moved in a flurry of motion, and I was left with a stinging, empty hand.

I reached out again. Amus.e.m.e.nt Amus.e.m.e.nt. "I have slow barbarian eyes. Could you make it again so I can learn it?"

Celean stepped back, shrugging. Indifference Indifference. "Am I your teacher? Should I give something of mine to a barbarian who cannot even strike me in a fight?" She lifted her chin and looked off toward the spinning sword tree, but her eyes darted back to me, playfully.

I chuckled and came to my feet, bringing up my hands again.

She laughed and turned to face me. "Go!"

This time I was ready, and I knew what Celean was capable of. She was no sort of delicate flower. She was quick and fearless and aggressive.

So I went on the offensive, taking advantage of my long arms and legs. I struck out with Dancing Maiden, but she skipped away. No. It would be better to say she slid away from me, never compromising her balance in the least, her feet weaving smoothly through the long gra.s.s.

Then she changed directions suddenly, catching me between steps and slightly off my stride. She feigned a punch at my groin, then pushed me slightly off balance with Turning Millstone. I staggered but managed to keep my feet beneath me.

I tried to regain my balance, but she brushed me again with Turning Millstone, then again. And again. Each time only shoving me a few inches, but it kept me in a helpless stumbling retreat until she managed to plant her foot behind mine, tripping me and sending me flat onto my back.

Before I'd finished striking the ground she already had hold of my wrist, and soon had my arm tangled firmly in Ivy on the Oak. This pressed my face into the gra.s.s while putting uncomfortable pressure against my wrist and shoulder.

For a second I considered trying to struggle free, but only for a second. I was stronger than she was, but the whole point of positions like Ivy on the Oak and Sleeping Bear is to put pressure on the fragile parts of the body. You did not need a great deal of strength to attack the branch.

"I submit," I said. This is easier to say in Ademic: Veh Veh. An easy noise to make when you are winded, tired, or in pain. I'd become rather used to saying it lately.

Celean let go of me and stepped away, watching as I sat up.

"You really aren't very good," she said with brutal honesty.

"I am not used to striking young girls," I said.

"How could you become used to it?" She laughed. "To grow used to a thing, you must do it over and again. I expect you have never struck a woman even once."

Celean extended a hand. I took it in what I hoped was a gracious manner, and she helped pull me to my feet. "I mean where I come from, it is not right to fight with women."

"I do not understand," she said. "Do they not let the men fight in the same place as the women?"

"I mean, for the most part, our women do not fight," I explained.

Celean rolled her wrist over, opening and closing her hand as if there were some dirt on the palm and she was absentmindedly trying to rub it off. It was the hand-talk equivalent of puzzlement puzzlement, a confused frown of sorts. "How do they improve their Ketan if they do not practice?" she asked.

"Where I come from, the women have no Ketan at all."

Her eyes narrowed, then brightened. "You mean to say they have a secret secret Ketan," she said, using the Aturan word for "secret." Though her face was composed, her body vibrated with excitement. "A Ketan only they know, that the men are not allowed to see." Ketan," she said, using the Aturan word for "secret." Though her face was composed, her body vibrated with excitement. "A Ketan only they know, that the men are not allowed to see."

Celean pointed over to the bench where our teachers sat ignoring us. "Vashet has such a thing. I have asked her to show it to me many times, but she will not."

"Vashet knows another Ketan?" I asked.

Celean nodded. "She was schooled in the path of joy before she came to us." She looked over at her, her face serious, as if she would pull the secret out of the other woman by sheer force of will. "Someday I will go there and learn it. I will go everywhere, and I will learn all the Ketans there are. I will learn the hidden ways of the ribbon and the chain and of the moving pool. I will learn the paths of joy and pa.s.sion and restraint. I will have all all of them." of them."

When she spoke, Celean didn't say this in a tone of childish fancy, as if she were daydreaming of eating an entire cake. Neither was she boastful, as if she were describing a plan she had put together on her own and thought very clever.

Celean said it with a quiet intensity. It was almost as if she were simply explaining who she was. Not to me. She was telling herself.

She turned back to look at me. "I will go to your land too," she said. Absolute Absolute. "And I will learn the barbarian Ketan your women keep secret from you."

"You will be disappointed," I said. "I did not misspeak. I know the word for secret. What I meant to say is that where I come from, many women do not fight."

Celean rolled her wrist again in puzzlement, and I knew I had to be more clear. "Where I come from, most women spend their whole lives without holding a sword. Most grow up not knowing how to strike another with a fist or the blade of their hand. They know nothing of any sort of Ketan. They do not fight at all." I stressed the last two words with strong negation strong negation.

That finally seemed to get the point across to her. I had half expected her to look horrified, but instead she simply stood there blankly, hands motionless, as if at a loss for what to think. It was as if I'd just explained to her that the women where I came from didn't have any heads.

"They do not fight?" she asked dubiously. "Not with the men or with each other or with anyone at all?"

I nodded.

There was a long, long pause. Her brow furrowed and I could actually see her struggling to come to grips with this idea. Confusion. Dismay Confusion. Dismay. "Then what do they do?" she said at last.

I thought of the women I knew: Mola, Fela, Devi. "Many things," I said, having to improvise around the words I didn't know. "They make pictures out of stones. They buy and sell money. They write in books."

Celean seemed to relax as I recited this list, as if relieved to hear these foreign women, empty of any Ketan, weren't strewn around the countryside like boneless corpses.

"They heal the sick and mend wounds. They play ..." I almost said play music and sing songs play music and sing songs, but caught myself in time. "They play games and plant wheat and make bread."

Celean thought for a long moment. "I would rather do those things and fight as well," she said decisively.

"Some women do, but for many it is considered not of the Lethani." I used the phrase "of the Lethani" because I could not think of how to say "proper behavior" in Ademic.

Celean gestured sharp disdain and reproach sharp disdain and reproach. I was amazed how much more it stung coming from this young girl in her bright yellow s.h.i.+rt than it ever had from Tempi or Vashet. "The Lethani is the same everywhere," she said firmly. "It is not like the wind, changing from place to place."

"The Lethani is like water," I responded without thinking. "It is itself unchanging, but it shapes itself to fit all places. It is both the river and the rain."

She glared at me. It was not a furious glare, but coming from one of the Adem, it had the same effect. "Who are you to say the Lethani is like one thing and not another?"

"Who are you to do the same?"

Celean looked at me for a moment, the hint of a serious line between her pale eyebrows. Then she laughed brightly and brought up her hands. "I am Celean," she proclaimed. "My mother is of the third stone. I am Adem born, and I am the one who will throw you to the ground."

She was as good as her word.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN.

Purpose VASHET AND I FOUGHT, moving back and forth across the foothills of Ademre.

After all this time, I barely noticed the wind anymore. It was as much a part of the landscape as the uneven ground beneath my feet. Some days it was gentle, and did little more than make patterns in the gra.s.s or flick my hair into my eyes. Other days it was strong enough to make the loose fabric of my clothes crack and snap against my skin. It could come at you from unexpected directions without a moment's warning, pus.h.i.+ng you as firmly as a hand between your shoulder blades.

"Why do we spend so much time on my hand fighting?" I asked Vashet as I made Picking Clover.

"Because your hand fighting is sloppy," Vashet said, blocking me with Fan Water. "Because you embarra.s.s me every time we fight. And because three times of four you lose to a child half your size."

"But my sword fighting is even worse," I said as I circled, looking for an opening.

"It is worse," she acknowledged. "That is why I do not let you fight anyone but me. You are too wild. You could hurt someone."

I smiled. "I thought that was the point of this."

Vashet frowned, then reached out casually to grip my wrist and shoulder, twisting me into Sleeping Bear. Her right hand held my wrist over my head, stretching my arm at an awkward angle, while her left pressed firmly against my shoulder. Helpless, I was forced to bend at the waist, staring at the ground.

"Veh," I said in submission.

But Vashet didn't release me. She twisted, and the pressure against my shoulder increased. The small bones of my wrist began to ache.

"Veh," I said a little louder, thinking she hadn't heard me. But still she held me, twisting a little harder at my wrist. "Vashet?" I tried to turn my head to look at her, but from this angle all I could see was her leg.

"If the point of this is to hurt someone," she said, "why should I let you go?"

"That's not what I meant ..." Vashet pushed down harder, and I stopped talking.

"What is the purpose of Sleeping Bear?" she asked calmly.

"To incapacitate your opponent," I said.

"Very well." Vashet began to bear down with the slow, relentless force of a glacier. Dull pain began to build in my shoulder as well as my wrist. "Soon your arm will be twisted from the cup of your shoulder. Your tendons will stretch and pull free of the bone. Your muscles will tear and your arm will hang like a wet rag at your side. Then will Sleeping Bear have served its purpose?"

I struggled a bit out of pure animal instinct. But it only turned the burning pain into something sharper, and I stopped. Over the course of my training, I had been put into inescapable positions before. Every time I had been helpless, but this was the first time I had truly felt that way.

"The purpose of Sleeping Bear is control," Vashet said calmly. "Right now, you are mine to do with as I wish. I can move you, or break you, or let you free."

"I would prefer free," I said, trying to sound more hopeful than desperate.

There was a pause. Then she asked, calmly, "What is the purpose of Sleeping Bear?"

"Control."

I felt her hands release me, and I stood, slowly rolling my shoulder to ease the ache.

Vashet stood there, frowning at me. "The point of all of this is control. First you must have control of yourself. Then you can gain control of your surroundings. Then you gain control of whoever stands against you. This is the Lethani."