Warchild Page 11

  The little ship lifted off with a vertical thrust, smoother than I anticipated. I looked out my window. All around was a muted humming as we skidded above the thick treetops, going up the mountainside. The landscape moved. It started to make me dizzy so I glanced back at the adults.

  The Caste Master looked very much the same as the last time I’d seen him. He wore all white, his hair and face the same pearly color I remembered, his silver facial tattoo shining in the soft yellow light of the cabin. His strangely unlined face and the backswept angles of his jaw and cheekbones made him look unfinished. An artist’s interpretation of a man-sculpture he didn’t have time to detail. The large black eyes flickered around the cabin, as if out of nervousness, but I didn’t think the ki’redan-na had to be nervous, especially here.

  A fold of the small, transparent wing rested against my arm. I looked at its tiny lines. He smelled like wildflowers, as if he’d spent the morning outdoors. When he looked down at me I made a point not to turn away.

  “Inija-na,” he said. “The place of testing.”

  “Yes, Caste Master.” I didn’t know if it was the flight, but my stomach rolled uneasily. The flight, the spar, this alien talking.

  The black eyes blinked once and the bold head tilted. The gesture reminded me of something but I couldn’t think of it “What has Nikolas-dan taught you?” he asked.

  “Ki’redan-na ... Nikolas-dan has taught me a lot. What exactly would you like to know?”

  “What would you like to tell me?”

  His eyes didn’t leave my face. He was strange but not like in the old vids that made aliens seem so horrible. Not even like on the Send, which often showed flashes of eyes and their little pointed teeth. He resembled humans just enough to totally fascinate me, and the differences only made the similarities more obvious.

  “Ki’redan-na, I’ve learned the structure of the castes.” Start basic.

  “Yes?”

  My ears popped. When I glanced out the window near Enas-dan all I saw was a deep blue sky.

  I’d memorized the information back when my days were filled mostly by reading. “I learned that the ka’redan-na is the first of the eight castes in Nan’hade. The ka’redane embody the central beliefs of the striviirc-na—”

  “Which are?”

  I was in the inija-na, being tested, here in this ship.

  “Conflict—whether in society or in self—assists in coming to the place of your ultimate self. The ka’redan-na teaches this thought through the martial forms. They also provide the best conditions in which you can achieve hiaviirc-na bae. The ka’redan-na provides structure and peace in society. Which is a paradox since you’re by nature both creators of conflict and catalysts for peace in which the spiritual na may be cultivated.” Slate answer.

  The Nan’hade striviirc-na, who made up most of the spacefaring crew in the Warboy’s fleet, had no gods. The “godless strits” was a common term in EarthHub.

  Their philosophy and caste system, which was a loose translation to begin with, intertwined and branched into different areas of their lives like trees in a forest, a thornbush, or the symbols you found everywhere you looked in this country.

  I couldn’t tell if he was satisfied by my answer. He said, “What is na?”

  “Place. Caste, when in relation to the hierarchy of societal na.”

  “One more question. What are the principal nae?”

  “Physical—body or environment; emotional—including your mental state; societal—your role or occupation in society; spiritual—all forms refined to achieve hiaviirc-na bae.”

  Enas-dan watched me from her corner.

  “Do you believe what you say?” she asked.

  “Kii’redan,” I said. “I include it in my training.”

  The Caste Master’s eyes narrowed. “That is a bad answer,” he said bluntly. “But perhaps to be expected.”

  I clasped my hands in my lap, suddenly cold. They didn’t speak to me for the rest of the ride. Eventually the ship touched down and the engines whined to a halt.

  Enas-dan yanked back the door to reveal a sprawling, colorful building and the enormous vista around it. She jumped out, followed by the Caste Master (who flowed more than leaped from the hatch), then reached back to take my arm since my eyes were fixed on the sight. Bristling mountain peaks jutted all around us, taller than the one we stood on, with a sliver of sea far off in the distance, so dark and calm it looked more like a land horizon. The cold air blew through me as soon as I left the inner warmth of the ship, tugging my clothing and tossing my hair into my eyes.

  I walked beside Enas-dan and followed the Caste Master toward the inija-na. It was fancy compared to the other buildings I was used to around the S’tlian house, and seemed older, some of the paint chipped and faded in places. The eaves were carved, deep red and gold. The walls were also engraved, blue and gold, showing battle scenes in what looked like one continuous panel around the outside of the building. Wide stone steps led up to a veranda. The roof was supported by sculpted three-meter-tall striviirc-na forms, their heads touching the roof and their hands holding swords, blades upward: a column of stone assassin-priests with fierce black eyes.

  Standing on either side of the quadruple doorway were two more guards, but they weren’t made of stone. They didn’t acknowledge my stare as we passed, but they looked directly at the Caste Master, a brief, intense recognition. I peered up at their tall, wrapped forms, looked back even as we crossed the threshold into the inija-na. Warm air reached out to draw us inside the heavily carved inner portico where more assassin-priests greeted us, guarding another quadruple doorway. The tiled floor, all in the ka’redan-na patterns, echoed our steps.

  Then we entered the vas’tatlar—proving ground. Not a place of testing, which to them implied learning; this large, high room was the place where you established yourself. It spanned about a hundred meters with a smooth, dark wooden floor, rimmed by white and gold tiles where assassin-priests and other castemembers stood, talking quietly to one another. An attack of alien faces and language came at me as I walked close to Enas-dan’s side. I understood snatches here and there, this one discussing his son, that one her job.

  Caste colors flowed over my sight, like looking on a garden of flowers. Some of the people were robed, some not. The assassin-priests wore the coiled clothing, other castes in loose tunics and pants, larger versions of my own outfit. Some wrapped their hair in those long cloth headdresses. Tattoos in many different patterns decorated faces of all colors. Though the dominant skin tone in the crowd was ka’redan white, I noticed pale blue, lavender, black, blood-red, ocher, gold, deep sunset orange, and leaf green—their natural skin color. Most of those were children who hadn’t been formally accepted into a caste. They stood in the front rows, serious wide faces in miniature to the adults.

  Enas-dan walked me along the outer edge of the crowd. The Caste Master had disappeared. As I glanced around I met the gazes of other humans—sympathizers. The faces were shocking in their familiarity: eyes with colored irises, lined skin, earth-tone hair. But all were tattooed. All belonged to one caste or another.

  My shoulder grazed one of the long silk banners that hung from the ceiling down the wall. We stopped by a plain wooden door. She scratched it briefly and Ash-dan opened it.

  I forced myself not to step back as his eyes impaled me, even though he smiled. The glow of all the new surroundings quickly faded.

  “Eja,” he said, “isn’t this exciting, Jos-na?”

  His tone was like someone talking to a kid that needed to be amused. I said, “It’s new, Ash-dan.”

  “Don’t worry.” He laughed. “I won’t hurt you too badly.”

  “Stop trying to intimidate him,” Enas-dan said with mock anger, putting a hand on my back to guide me inside. “Before your brother takes issue with you.”

  I went by Ash-dan, trying not to touch him.

  “Eja, now that would be a spar,” Ash-dan replied, then raised his voice. “Niko, that knocki
ng we heard, it was your student’s knees.”

  Enas-dan sucked her teeth in disapproval, but laughed.

  Niko stood in the middle of the small paneled chamber, half-naked and rubbing some sort of cream on his hands.

  I tried to make my mind blank against the teasing.

  “Thank you for bringing him, ki’redan,” Niko said to his mother. “Now please leave us alone, both of you.”

  “Eja, take a breath, Jos-na,” Ash-dan said in parting. “All ka’redane do this.”

  How was I acting that he thought I needed reassurance?

  “Enh,” Enas-dan agreed, and patted my shoulder lightly. I was glad when they left, though the room suddenly seemed much larger and Niko stood far away. I tucked my hands up inside my sleeves.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Sick,” I said. “Do I really have to spar today?”

  “Ignore Ash-dan. He only tries to rattle you.”

  “I know.” I looked away from his eyes. He wore only the coils about his legs, to the top of his thighs, and shorts of the same white that made it all look like one continuous length of cloth. I had never seen him so uncovered. His chest was bare, without tattoos, and as smooth as polished shell, the color of pale brown stone. A couple small scars cut across his ribs, but that was all. He held a rolled length of the same white cloth and stood barefoot. “Why are you getting dressed here?”

  “For the same reason you will.” He tilted his head at me, then held out the rolled cloth. “Take this.”

  I stepped close enough to do that. He said, “Pay attention. Now you’re going to learn the ritual wrapping of the ae-da—the chest guard.” He held his arms up and away from his body. “Start at my right waist and wrap around the stomach first, then the back and around again.”

  I did as he instructed. He talked me through it, how many coils exactly to go around his torso and how to tuck the end securely between his shoulder blades. I didn’t like to touch him and be that close to him. I had never been that close to him, so close that I felt the warmth of his skin.

  He told me how to wrap the enie-da—the arm guards— then finally to wrap him over the shoulders, crisscrossing beneath his armpits from around and behind his neck… a process that took me a half hour and a chair to stand on before he pronounced it complete. In all of it I finally got to see the slender molded sheath strapped to his inner left forearm, where a slim blade was housed. As I wrapped his arm he told me to leave a sliver of a gap in the coils, and demonstrated once I’d completed it how he could swiftly pull the blade from its oiled sheath in one move, almost like sleight of hand.

  Standing on the chair, I could look at him eye to eye. “Do you do this every time you get dressed?”

  “Only before a spar,” he answered.

  “Do I really have to fight Ash-dan in front of all those people?”

  “You know all testing is done in the inija-na. Don’t fear it. It’s a time of celebration. Witnesses are expected, especially those already in one’s chosen caste.”

  “I’m going to lose. I’m nowhere as good as Ash-dan.”

  “The point isn’t to beat him. What have I taught you, ritla?”

  “ ‘It’s in the struggle that we discover our ability.’ I know.” I couldn’t argue with him.

  “What’s really troubling you, Jos-na?”

  I shrugged. “Why does Ash-dan say those things to me?”

  “He is only teasing.”

  “He calls me a pirate-trained orphan.”

  The mildness went out of his eyes. “Does he?”

  Now I felt like a snitch. So I shrugged, the human way.

  “What else does he say to you?”

  The conversation in the kitchen now seemed distant. Something in Niko’s face bordered on intolerance. But not toward me.

  I didn’t want to cause trouble. “He just teases me. I should just block it out.”

  My teacher didn’t say anything.

  “I know Ash-dan doesn’t mean it, right?”

  “Jos-na,” Niko said. “My brother had a difficult time on Chaos. And he was close to our father. He is a good captain and a good ka’redan, but he hasn’t yet cast off his klal’tloric. Do you understand? There are some things he can’t disregard.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the Hub and everything in it.” He paused. “But don’t let that stop you from fighting him.”

  “It won’t.” I wasn’t in the Hub anymore. I’d show Ash-dan.

  “Good.” Niko lifted me off the chair and set me on the floor.

  “So are you going to fight Ash-dan too?”

  “No. I will fight the Caste Master.”

  I looked up at him. He was smiling.

  “Don’t worry,” he said.

  “I’m not worried.”

  “I won’t get hurt, Jos-na.”

  I didn’t answer. Niko smoothed the fabric on my shoulders, a sudden affectionate touch that made me freeze.

  “Let me show you what it’s like to no longer be afraid.”

  * * *

  XVII.

  As the Caste Master and Niko took their beginning stances in the middle of the sparring space, everyone sat on the floor. I found the S’tlians after a quick dodge through the crowd and squeezed in front of Enas-dan with the other kids. Nobody sat in front of me.

  The spar was shockingly brief. A ka’redan stood at one corner of the open floor and began the match with a command. In a blur Niko pounced. He kicked high, his knife suddenly in one hand. Enihan’jaro attack. The blade slashed down and diagonal as he landed. But the kick hadn’t connected. As if it were orchestrated the Caste Master crouched fluidly to avoid the first attack, then rolled to dodge the slashing blade. Niko leaped again, without a break in the flowing line of his arm. Saj’deni strike. But Anil-dan was already on his feet. I blinked and saw the han flip through the air. In another blink the Caste Master engaged Niko’s arm with his left, his small wing wrapping around Niko’s wrist, surprisingly elastic. The heel of his right hand shot upward. Niko’s head snapped back, then the rest of him followed. His body landed with a thud on the wooden floor. The side of Anil-dan’s hand slashed down, the transparent wing flaring wide, but he stopped just short of Niko’s throat.

  I didn’t breathe. The entire fight had been in silence— both from the crowd and the opponents. I couldn’t believe it was over so quickly. I had identified all the moves, knew the defenses and counteroffenses for them—Niko had taught me. And yet he was beaten—by speed alone?

  Enas-dan said behind me, as if she read my mind, “At such levels the fights are never long.”

  I remembered Niko’s words from training. The objective was to fell your opponent with the least number of moves— preferably one, as the swordmasters did. They were assassin-priests, after all. They didn’t train only for show.

  The fact Niko had gotten in as many moves as he had against the Caste Master, instead of being taken down in the first second, said enough about his skill.

  As I stared, Niko rose without any injury or stiffness and crossed an arm with the Caste Master before stepping back. The Caste Master walked off the sparring space without a backward glance. A few people began to leave. Was that it?

  Niko retrieved his han from the floor and disappeared back into his room. A group of striviirc-na children swarmed over the open space and began sparring, some of them against two or more opponents. Some were smaller than me but moved with incredible skill and precision, all in silence except for the slap of bare feet on the floor and the soft thuds of limbs colliding.

  I looked back at Ash-dan. He pointed to the room in the corner.

  I walked on concrete feet.

  Niko met me inside the door. “Come.” He smiled. “Give me the honor of performing the ritual wrapping on my first student.”

  I looked up. My cold hands began to warm.

  “Hold your arms out,” he said.

  I did. For a flash of a moment I remembered my father pulling me out of the se
cret compartment after a drill, right into his arms for a hug and a pat. I blinked to clear it.

  Niko held my sleeves lightly and tugged, peeling off my shirt.

  He was my teacher and I tried not to shiver.

  “It will be all right, s’yta-na,” he said softly.

  I didn’t know what that word meant and for some reason I didn’t ask. I just nodded and fixed my gaze to a point on the floor.

  He wrapped me up like a mummy, in silence. I stood as still as he had when I’d performed the ritual on him. I thought about tossing Ash-dan on his ass. I imagined it since it probably wasn’t going to happen. When Niko finished he set me in front of a narrow mirror on the wall at the back of the room, standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders so I couldn’t dodge away.

  “Look up, Jos-na.”

  “I don’t need to. Let’s just go.”

  “Your teacher is asking. Look up.”

  It was the first time in over a year that I saw myself in a mirror. Maybe he knew.

  My eyes weren’t as dark as I remembered. Against the black wrappings they showed a bright blue-gray. My face had lost a lot of its baby fat and my hair hung over my ears, dark and straight. I looked up into Niko’s reflection. He watched mine. Me in striviirc-na assassin-priest clothes.

  I didn’t think of Falcone except in the realization that I wasn’t thinking of him at all. Even though Niko stood behind me as Falcone used to do, with hands on my shoulders. The weight was different. Niko’s hands were hardly any pressure at all.

  I wondered if my parents would have recognized me.

  “Now you are ready,” Niko said.

  * * *

  XVIII.

  Ash-dan waited for me in the center of the sparring space; he had shooed the children to the sides. They watched as I approached, tree green, solemn-faced sprites with the skill to kill a body with their bare hands. Some of the adults, maybe their parents, stood behind them. They watched too, just as serious and silent. Niko veered to the side to stand by his mother—and the Caste Master, who stood like a piece of art, or an animal breathing in his surroundings.