Reave the Just and Other Tales (13 page)

I found myself looking at her rather than at the contest. She had thought of something which had eluded me. Her assumption exposed my own. Without realizing it, I had simply believed that the motives of mages surpassed our capacity to explain them—that no guess of ours could hope to approach the truth. But we had been given a hint when the mage spoke. And she had made better use of it than I.

“Why doesn’t he return us to our lives?” she continued. “Or simply kill us? Or let us remember? Because he can’t spare the power. These trials are all he can manage.

“He needs someone,” she stated as if she were certain, “to fight for him.”

Behind her, the
shin-te
went to the floor in a flurry of spear strokes. I thought him finished, but he recovered. Scissoring his legs, he flung out kicks which cost him a jab to one thigh, but which succeeded at breaking apart the warrior’s attack. For an instant, he appeared to spin on his back among the spears. Then he arched to his feet, facing his opponent.

Now he held one of the spears. I had not seen him acquire it, could hardly imagine how he might have wrested it from the warrior’s grasp. Nevertheless he had restored a measure of equality to the struggle.

Although his leg had been wounded, his stance remained sure. His air of strength was an illusion, however. His new weakness revealed itself in diminished quickness, diminished focus. Pain and damage disturbed the concentration of his
qa
.

And still he used the spear as a staff—a defensive weapon. While his opponent sought to kill him, he appeared to desire only the warrior’s defeat.

He had said that
there is no killing stroke,
but he was wrong. And I believed that he knew it, although he might not have been able to name the truth. The anguish in his eyes did not arise from his wounds. Mere hurt could not exceed him.

I knew to my cost that the killing stroke was despair.

For a moment, I had the sensation that my mind had closed itself, shutting out thought. I felt only panic. Who else but Argoyne might require a champion in the midst of the Mage War? Black Argoyne, Archemage of the Dark Lords? All others like him were dead. And everyone in Vess—everyone in all Vesselege—knew that the White Lords were winning. They had no need of a champion.

Isla had not yet pushed her assumption to that conclusion. When she did, what would she say? Impelled by the scruples of the
mashu-te,
would she insist that we must pray for the young man’s failure, so that Argoyne would receive no aid from us?

I was
nahia
to the bone. The violation of such a sacrifice would burst my
qa
entirely, leaving me empty and lost.

While she returned her gaze to the contest, the warrior again changed his tactics. Now he held his spear by its butt with both hands, whirling it about his head as though it were a bolus. To my eye, this seemed an implausible assault. Surely it left him exposed to counterattack? Yet apparently it did not. The young
shin-te
found no way past the wheeling spearpoint.

At first this baffled me. And the more closely I studied him, the more confused I became. Why did he not strike
now
—or
there
? But then, despite my panic, I glimpsed the truth. The warrior varied his stance, distance, and pace in ways which exactly mirrored the young man’s
qa
. Every shift of the young man’s energy or intention was reflected by the whirling spear. He could not counter because the warrior’s weapon matched each movement.

The truth was that I had concentrated my attention on the wrong combatant. Thinking that I must understand the young man’s skills and limitations and mistakes in order to aid him, I had missed the real point of Isla’s assumption. His mastery was not at issue. Rather, he needed to grasp the nature of his opponent.

If it was true that Argoyne required a champion, then it must also be true that the warrior we watched had been mage-made to mimic an opposing champion. The champion of the White Lords, and of Goris Miniter, Vesselege’s King.

“Where—?” I tried to ask Isla. But my voice stuck in my throat. I swallowed, breathing deeply to clear my
qa
. “Where,” I began again, “have you seen a spear used in that way before?”

I feared her reply almost as much as I feared her scruples.

However, she answered softly, “I haven’t.” Then she added, “The
mashu-te
distrust weapons. I know less than you.”

Indeed. No doubt the
mashu-te
believed that any weapon diminished the personal responsibility of its wielder. In contrast, the
nahia
studied weapons without number. But ours was the Art of Circumvention. We studied all weapons—apart from the fang—in order to counter or defeat them. We did not wish to become dependent upon them. And I had never encountered tactics such as the warrior used.

“Do the
ro-uke
fight so?” I pursued, although I did not expect a response. I was merely thinking aloud.

“If they do,” she muttered, “they do it in secret.”

I understood more than she said. The
ro-uke
did nothing publicly. In Vess, however, I had watched such masters at work. Once or twice I had measured myself against them, when one escapade or another had brought us into conflict. Theirs was not an art of direct confrontation.

In addition, the tactics this warrior now used were ill suited to the stealthy work of assassination. They demanded great skill, but lacked both quickness and subtlety.

Still they were effective against the young man. I knew how I would attack in his place. Thrown at the warrior’s foot, my fang might serve me well. And I could guess at Isla’s counter. Direct in all things, she would attempt to catch the spearpoint—or break the shaft. But I could not imagine how the
shin-te
would meet such a challenge.

Service to
qa
in all things
. He may have been handicapped by the strengths of his Art.

Abruptly I received my answer. Amid a flurry of feints and deflections, the young man struck.

All the Fatal Arts made a study of
qa,
and I was a master—yet I saw no hint of his intent, no concentration of purpose or projection of energy, until he had carried it out. A blow like his would have felled me where I stood.

Whirling his staff, he swung it against his opponent’s spear a span or two below the point. I felt the crack of impact before I truly saw what he had done.

Apparently, however, this was the opening which the warrior sought. Using the young man’s force to accelerate his own motion, he reversed the spear in his hands so that its butt punched down onto the
shin-te
’s crown. Less than an instant later, his foot hooked the young man’s ankle, jerking away his support.

Stunned, the
shin-te
dropped to his back.

Before his spine touched stone, his opponent had reversed the spear again. Both Isla and I winced as the point drove deep into the young master’s chest.

Our only hope was dead before his limbs had settled themselves to the floor.

_______

“I’m not sure that was a good idea,” she observed when she had composed herself. “What do we gain by watching him die? I don’t think any master can beat that—that whatever it is—that creature.”

Certainly she and I had both failed often enough.

Pacing the cell, she continued bitterly, “It’s inhuman. None of us can defeat magery. That’s not what the Fatal Arts are for.

“If our captor wants a champion to fight an enemy like that,” she avowed, “let him create one.”

“Again you make assumptions,” I sighed. “Your conclusion does not follow from your observation.”

I had no wish to argue with her. More than that, I actively wished to avoid speaking of my own assumptions. I did not know how I might counter her reaction to Argoyne’s name. But the young man’s death had restored my knowledge of despair. I contradicted Isla simply so that I would not succumb.

“That our captor uses an inhuman test,” I explained, “does not necessarily imply that he intends his champion to fight an inhuman opponent. It suggests only that he cannot persuade or coerce an appropriate master to serve him.” If he could have done so, he would have had no use for us, and our lives would have been left undisturbed. “Lacking any man or woman who fights as the opposing champion does, he is unable to test us fairly. This is the best he can do. With the power at his disposal.”

A power which was itself being tested to its limits.

“Are you defending him now?” she protested. But her objection was not seriously meant. “Who is he, anyway?” she asked more plaintively. “Who in all the White Hells needs a champion at a time like this?”

I spread my hands. “Does it matter? If our captor cannot obtain a fit champion—and if his champion does not win—we will die. Nothing else has significance.”

She snorted. “Of course it matters.” Apparently she felt a
mashu-te
contempt for the ambiguities of the
nahia
. “All this must have something to do with the Mage War. Why else does a mage need a champion? Are you saying that you see no difference between the White Lords and the Dark?”

In Vesselege it was believed that the White Lords were the servants of light and life, while such men as Black Argoyne devoted themselves to havoc and cold murder. For that reason—it was believed—Goris Miniter had allied his reign and his kingdom against the Dark Lords, and the Archemage.

I shared such assumptions. If I distrusted them, I did so on principle, not from conviction.

“That is not how you reasoned with the
shin-te,
” I countered wearily. “Then you claimed that only the blows mattered, not the context.” More than my companion, I had been broken by my defeats. “Who we are asked to serve will mean nothing to us if we are dead.”

I prayed that this thin argument would suffice. I lacked a better one—except that I was
nahia,
and my loyalties did not much resemble the abstract purity of the
mashu-te
.

Fortunately, Isla was silenced while she considered the contradictions of her beliefs.

_______

Once again, he returned from death to the cell, remembering nothing. The sight of him wrung my heart, for his sake as well as my own. The bereavement in his eyes had deepened until it seemed to swallow hope. For the second time, he staggered as he appeared. And he was slow to recover, as though he were unsure where his balance lay.

Still his thoughts followed their familiar path. When he could summon his voice from his parched throat, he asked, as he had always asked, “Where am I?”

Neither Isla nor I attempted a reply. Instead we stared in dismay at the blood which drained from his lips with each word, dripping from his chin to spatter his robe with failure.

Then he was gone. We observed his departure no more clearly than we had witnessed his arrival. We only knew that he had been given back to us—and taken away again.

_______

“By the Seven—!” Isla cried. “Asper, what’s happened to him?”

The young man’s blood might have been my own. I had grown tired of speculation. I did not like where it led me. But I did not need to assume much in order to answer.

“Our mage grows weak.” According to the stories told in Vess, Argoyne had fought alone against the assembled might of the White Lords for the better part of a year. “He could not spare the power which allowed us to witness the contest. For that reason, the
shin-te
was inadequately restored from death.”

She accepted this explanation. “Who is he?” she asked again. “Asper, I do not know what to wish for.” She was close to despair herself. “I want to live. I want to repay what this mage has done to us. He has taught me hate, and that I will not forgive. But I cannot desire victory for such as the Black Archemage.

“I need to know who it is that requires a champion.”

Behind the grime on her face, her anguish was plain. Until then, I had not fully appreciated how costly the scruples of the
mashu-te
might be. During my own trial, she had saved my spirit. Now she threatened to crush it within me.

“Isla,” I replied as gently as I could, “I am
nahia
. We have taken no part in this war because it surpasses us.” Tales were told of
mashu-te
who fought for Goris Miniter, and of
ro-uke,
but never of
nahia
. “Who are we to stake our allegiance”—our honor—“on a struggle we cannot understand?” Honor was a word which my masters did not use lightly. “I want to live. And I want to repay this mage. Other concerns do not trouble me.”

Mine was the Art of Circumvention.

I expected more
mashu-te
contempt, but Isla surprised me. She regarded me, not with scorn, but with wonder and pity. “You’re avoiding the truth,” she breathed. “You know who he is. And you don’t want to name him.”

Her
qa
confronted me as though she readied a blow.

“You believe he’s Argoyne,” she said softly. “And you’re willing to help him. You believe we’ll die here if we don’t help him defeat the White Lords, and you’re willing to do it.”

I would have preferred being struck. Stung by despair, I cried, “Because it does not matter!” Against her scruples and her purity, I protested, “
I
matter. To me.
You
matter to me. The
shin-te
matters to me. But this war of mages and kings—” I could not explain myself to one who was not
nahia
. “It requires too many assumptions.”

Her reply might have finished me. Before she could utter it, however, we became aware that the young man had returned.

_______

The blood was gone from his lips. He appeared stronger—perhaps better rested. This time more magery had been spent on his restoration. But it did not soften his loss and bafflement. Mere power could not heal the aggrievement of his young heart.

“Where am I?”

Mere power could not make him other than he was.

“Who are you?”

This could not go on. If Argoyne was scarcely able to heal those he tested, his crisis must not be far off. And despair was not cowardice. Although I feared Isla in several ways, I did not allow her to daunt me.