Four Seasons of the Warrior (chap 1)

The Desert Lands (chap 5)

Midsummer, 2nd year of the reign of Kai'el














         Shahtun stood again on the black sands of the Burning Sands, and stared at the black, straight towers of rock so strong that it would break any steel.





         The Dry Lands were a harsh, shrewish lady, and would flay alive any who didn't grow to learn her moods early on. For such a great expanse of land, the Dry Lands were sparsely populated, most populations, and all towns and cities, clustered around the rare perennial oases. The paths and roads shifted, or were buried, constantly, by the movements of the sand and dust, and there were myriad temporary or seasonal oases travelers could, and did, make use of.





         But the Burning Lands, like the Walking Sands, had none of these within two day's manswalk from their centers.





         The Kingdom of Vokan, a loosely confederated group of four lands, under the general and vague rule of King Kai'el, of the House Ta'an, a woodsland House. The last king had been King S'aarth, of House Neveha, a stonedweller House. The progression of Kings was simple, if odd. A King would choose a successor, from a House outside of His native lands, and that successor would be groomed for the Crown, and, eventually, inherit it. The majority advisers would be from Houses of the two lands not homes of the King, or His successor. Thus all lands were represented in High Court, at all times. The Kingdom was maintained in balance, and had been, for a generation of generations.





         The Kingdom consisted of the Stonelands, the high ridges, cliffs, and mountains, of hard stone, that were populated by the peoples who would quarry the best hardstone, supply the best meats of the waters, and the only route for long range coastal trade in the Kingdom. Of the Forest lands, lands where most medicinal herbs, some spices, much wood used in ornate carved art, and most wood involved in weapon construction were found. Of the Dry Lands, a huge expanse of land, sheltered from sea-carried moisture by the highest of ridges from the Stonelands on the west, curling to the southwest, stretching to the east, where it was divided by the Great River. On one side, sand and rock desert, supporting only the toughest of plants and animals, stretching from the cliff-sides of the Stonelands to one day's manswalk of the river, to a fairly dry land of longer grasses and scrub, subject to seasonal fires, and home to much game, and many predators, until it ran into the Great Mountains at the far Eastern expanses. And, finally, of the Lands of Many Lives, which flowed from the far Great Mountains to the Forest lands, separated from the Dry Lands by a curve of lower mountains that ran from the Great Mountains all the way to the Vokan River, the river the Great River joined, just North of Kingsland City, on its way to the Stonelands, and then, the sea.





         It was from those ranges bordering the Dry Lands to the north and the northeast that the best iron was found, and the best weapons steel and sturdiest steel and iron works were made, though the other side of the Northern Mountains was also mined by the people of The Lands of Many Lives. Their iron and steel might not match that of the Dry Lands, but their precious metals, and soft metals like copper and tin were much more accessible, their land would support more miners, and they were far more likely to find seams containing gemstones. And, most importantly, their iron and steel, while not of Dry Lands quality, was cheaper to reach, cheaper to transport, and therefor, cheaper at market.





         This difference in cost at market did nothing to detract from the desirability of the strong and durable Dry Lands steel, with its distinct pattern of waves showing along the grain, and strength coming from the practice of cold forging, which was a necessity born of having so little to burn to keep a hot forge in operation.





         The Traders, of course, were bound to no Land, nor even to the Kingdom. But they were a peoples unto themselves, with practices and traditions not understood (and often unknown) to People of Lands.





         Ruminating on this, while staring at the time tower, waiting for its shadow to disappear into the column, itself, Shahtun wondered, as always, at how balance so rarely involved one thing against another, but was always shifting, in motion, consisting of many parts. A thing all Blade Dancers knew, to the core of their soul, but nonetheless, to Shahtun, a rare thing of beauty, in that it existed as truth from the lowliest levels of life, to the great expanses of the Kingdom, to the World, indeed, to the stars, themselves, in their never-ending, choreographed Dance in the skies.





         Other Dancers had, of course, gathered around the central column of the Burning Sands. This was a special time for Dancers, one where the world and the sun stood in perfect balance, when the sun would rise so perfectly in the sky that the central column would completely swallow its own shadow at the height of day. This was the day of Trial, and all Dancers would be present, to observe, or to compete. Students under critical eyes, especially those of their masters, participating in mock battles, students who felt ready, appealing for acceptance as full fledged Dancers, and, if their appeal is favorably looked upon, engaging in "to the blood" fencing, to determine if they are fit, students who ARE ready, but lack the confidence to make their appeal, or the unfortunates whom have been determined to be of the stuff that will never BE ready, to be dropped from The Teachings, and sent to make their way across the desert without support, to their home tribes, or die. Would-be Masters announcing their intention to take their place as Masters by challenging the Council of Masters, who then choose their opponent from the ranks of Training Masters, to face in a match where the applicant wins if they get a "touch" that would be a kill in battle, or actually kill their opponent...and who WILL be killed by that opponent, that being the ONLY way a challenger for masterhood can lose. It is a "Best your opponent, or die" proposal.





         Shahtun was always reckoned as one of the best of his generation, from the point he was chosen for training, through training, through his life as a Dancer...and, hopefully, now, when he intended to challenge for his Masterhood, despite his relative youth.





         The sun was finally balanced, the column swallowed its shadow, and the Caller announced the commencement of the day's contests by blowing through the hollowed out beak-horn of an afarsh'al.





         Shahtun watched, with a close and critical eye, the mock battles of the students-in-training, noting whose students were sharpest, cleanest in their movements, balanced, and riding their aggression like whirling sand demons, instead of attempting to use it to drive cuts and thrusts of pure force. Two or three master's classes stood out, overall, demonstrating the skill of their masters teachings, a handful stood out in solitude as students of extraordinary gifts, irregardless of whom was training them. Shahtun disagreed with many of  the observations of his peers, and even some Masters, voicing appreciation or disapproval over this battle or that, this student, or another. He was not looking for "classical" talent, or "proper form". He was watching for innovation, ability to adapt to the unexpected quickly, without pause or stumble, always part of one, balanced, flow. He saw none of that in any student, but he saw things that came very close, in some, and, in one Master in particular, he saw a consistency of movement, outside the forms, in his students, to make him believe that that class's master, Fain, believed as he did, in the nature of gently moving balance in everything. Not the simple need to acquire personal balance of movement.


         When the blood duels began, Shahtun was relatively uninterested in most of the participants, though he feigned otherwise. He did, however, watch with full attention when it was a student of Fain. And he noted, with internal pleasure, that all student applicants from Fain's group won handily...and usually quickly. This was despite the fact that two of the five were within a year's age of the time a student was allowed to hold live steel to train with, and the eldest had worked with live steel for no more than four years, when the average applicant had seven years' time of live steel training...and was usually near or at a true man's age. Fain's applicants had ranged from just gaining the growth before manhood, and the midpoint between man-child and man...approximately twelve to sixteen full years.


         At the close of student's contests, the call was made for those who would challenge for Master status. Those who would die, or assume responsibility for training a new crop of students chosen from the tribes for their apparent potential.





         There were many Dancers who looked up and down the rank formed, for this ceremony, of full Dancers, there were some who stared fixedly ahead, and stepped forward. Some stepped forth only after looking along the line. Shahtun noticed none of this, as he stepped forward, with bare confidence, and raw ambition humming in his person.


         As they faced the Council, each applicant was recognized by name, and the ritual question of "Do you place your life in the hands of the Council, for them to choose a champion to test your steel against?", always to be answered "I do", or to be forever denied another chance to ever become a Master.


         Shahtun, when faced with the ritual, of course answered with "I do"...but completed it with a challenge of "If the council so pleases, would it choose Master Fain for its champion?". The eyes of the council passed a look up and down their positions.


         "Do you dare ask the Council to have its champion chosen by his opponent, Dancer!?" The head of the Council demanded, angrily, but with some honest curiosity.


         "Prestigious Master, and Council head, I do but beg to face the best of the available champions, the Master with the most blooded sword, that if I win through this challenge, I can wear the title Master with greatest pride, and if I were to lose, my death will be the honor of being at the hands of the most renowned and revered of the active Masters." Shahtun replied, eyes to the ground, as a true supplicant.


         With his eyebrows raised at this statement, head Council Savaan retorted sharply, almost savagely,  "So be it, he who dares instruct the council! And I expect to enjoy very much an exciting spectacle, before your head lies on the Burning Sands!"

***************************************************************************

         An untold time later, less than an hour, most likely, though it felt like weeks, Shahtun came to a full consciousness, pulling himself from a deep state of meditation upon hearing his name announced.


         "Shahtun, to face Master Fain, as he so imperiously "requested" of the Council!" was the pronouncement of the herald of the Council.


         With the grace of a butterfly fresh from the cocoon spreading its wings for the very first time, Shahtun unfolded from his cross-legged seat to a full stand and walked forward and to face the center of the sitting council. When he reached the proper position, faced the Council, and bowed, as formality required, the whole council held their faces grim. Because he deliberately omitted one courtesy expected of any who faced the council--from the time he faced them formally until Fain began to walk forward, Shahtun never took his eyes off of Savaan's. A breach in protocol almost unheard of, as doing so so much as said "you have seniority on me, but I find myself to be your equal". Foolish hubris, as the Council was made up only of those who had trained at least 7 successful Masters from their classes, then were elected by the remaining Council members, to serve until death or senility.


         Fain came to position beside Shahtun, faced the Council, and pro-forma stated "I, Master Fain, am happy to be chosen champion of the Council, and will face this applicant, Shahtun, bringing with me the strength of the Council, and the will of the Fates. May blood lie on the sands before I forsake this honor."


         Both men then turned to opposite ends of the dais the Council occupied, paced to the end they each faced, turned a crisp and hard right angle away from it, and forward to the rings marked on the ground for them. Then they faced each other--as opponents, and bowed, as the equals they soon would be, or in salute of an honorable death, just as likely.


         Shahtun allowed himself no nervousness, no second thoughts, no concerns whatsoever about facing the man he thought, without a doubt, was the best amongst an outstanding population. Keeping his breath slow and shallow, pushing himself into an anoxic awareness of only that little space directly surrounding himself, allowing the world to become diffuse and indistinct, he stood, stock still, hands away from the hilts of any of his blades. This, itself, drew questioning looks and low sussurations from the crowd. Some seemed to be wondering if his challenge hadn't simply been a way to commit an honorable suicide.


         Deepening his breaths, pushing his awareness out further, and with more clarity, Shahtun paid no mind to anything the crowd of observers was doing, or really to anything. What he was doing was paying attention to everything as if it were all a simple and marvelous piece of tapestry, impossible to comprehend in the knots, but simple and elegant when taken as a whole.


         The rock was dropped, signalling the match's commencement, at precisely the same time that Shahtun brought his expanded consciousness far enough beyond himself to feel the electric tingle of Fain's presence. By the time the impact of the stone could be heard by the farthest ranks of observers, Fain was in motion, sweeping like a wind-driven spirit towards Shahtun, who had yet to bring himself to a ready stance, or touch his hilts. Several of the youngsters made anticipatory gasps as this happened, but the older apprentices, the ascended Dancers, and the Masters only watched with grim expectation.


         And all, most especially Fain, were severely shocked when, in less than the blink of an eye, Shahtun was no longer in the space Fain had now occupied, all blades, whirling, and shrieking through empty air. As if he were smoke, Shahtun had appeared, impossibly, behind Fain, with all of his weapons still in their sheaths. The collective gasps of disbelief were as sharp as Fain's turn, as he came to face Shahtun, once again.


         First one, then another of Fain's blades struck as if they were viper's fangs. He was using the traditional Vaas blades for two handed sword-work, each blade measuring from the crook of the wrist of an outstretched arm to the center of the breastbone, and each easily extending a dancer's striking range to as much as the long two handed Taer blades, at the cost of some striking power.


         Shahtun almost magically evaded every last slash and press from these blades, as he finally put hand to hilts, himself. In an amazing feat of strength and grace, even for a Dancer, he went from a traditional stance of feet being a tad more than shoulder width apart, at right angles, on the balls of the toes, to a sailing flip that launched him directly over Fain's head, in a space of time where the blades occupied the space he had been, a millisecond before.


         When his feet once again touched earth, so gently that there was barely a puff of dust to show anything but a direct, perfect, and solid stance, Shahtun had his Veel, the long knife, in his right hand, and his Taer in his left. Not an unheard of style, but Shahtun was right handed, and the longer blade usually went to the strong hand.


         Fain had been, once again, forced to recover, and whirl to face his opponent. Anger showed on his face for a bare moment, before he remembered himself, and visibly reached for the calm and balance in person that was absolutely necessary to the Dance. Shahtun, however, appeared to have not even mussed a single hair in the ridge he wore along the top of his skull, with a long tail bound by linked gold rings pinned in at the very base of his skull by a pin through the loop of hair and ring. Only a slight swaying of the tail gave evidence that he had even moved.


         Shahtun now went on the offensive, with a vengeance. Whirling like a sand-devil, never seeming to have more than a single point in contact with the sands, using the tips of his blades every bit as much as his toes, knees, elbows, even his head, he resembled nothing so much as a blow-adder with a broken back, fighting a long-bodied serpent-cat. There was never any point at which the observer could tell you exactly where a blade was, or had been, or what part of his body he'd centered his latest furious gyration around.


         Fain was being driven back as fast as he could move without losing his balance, the shock as plain on his face as it was on the members of the Councils', his blades making a ringing proof of the success of his attempts to block unseen edges snaking through the air, as the dust stirred by Shahtun's frenzied dance got thicker, and seemed, impossibly, to pull into a tighter ball.


         Gasping for breath, now, choked by the dust, Fain was visibly unnerved, yet seemed to be successfully maintaining a guard against an attack style the likes of which had never been seen before. Clangs of blades striking blades, shrieks of edge slipping along edge, leaving visible sparks flying from the points of contact, Fain was pushed, circled, and penned in by this amazing conflagration of blade and dust and motion.


         The dust obscured all view of the combatants, and then, suddenly, deathly silence, followed by the sounds of two blades striking stone. Twin sounds, not the sounds a shorter and a longer blade would make. With jaw-dropping amazement, the observers of the Council, and Shahtun's now-fellow Masters saw, as the dust settled, Shahtun with the back edge of his Veel along the front of Fain's throat, as if poised to slit it, while his Taer was positioned, point down, to be thrust cross-wise through Fain's body, entering between the joint of shoulder and neck on Fain's left, to transfix him through to the right hip. Shahtun met the collected gazes of the Council, then withdrew and sheathed both blades in one smooth movement. Upon his release, Fain collapsed as if he were a puppet with cut strings.


         Shahtun pointedly squatted, picked up a handful of sand, and started rubbing it on his chest, under his shirt, and then under his right sleeve. His hand came away gritty and bloody, until he gave both hands a thorough sand bath.


         He then turned his back on the Council, walked to Fain, laid one hand on his shoulder, while offering his other to help the man to his feet.


         Fain's face rose to look Shahtun directly in the eye, as he said "By all that is holy, Master, you must have been sired of smoke, and dammed by the shrieking winds, themselves! Never have I experienced such movement, nor have I heard of it in legend. You replaced balance with motion, and bested me, and well met."


         Shahtun responded, gently, so only Fain's ears could hear "I sacrificed nothing. Watching some of your students I know that you, as well as I, know that balance is not a matter of your own center, but that of everything in motion." Then backed slightly farther away, and pitched his voice to be heard by all "Master Fain, as I asked the Council to face you, I say I had to change my use of balance, or I indeed would have become naught but a name on the histories and a stain in the sands." As he helped Fain to his feet.


         "Welcome, Shahtun, to the ranks of the teaching Masters. At the height of the cold turns, you will choose your students." This was said in almost an angry staccato by the senior Councilman, but in no way detracted from Shahtun's satisfaction.

******************************************************************************************

         Shahtun had six moons, plus half a turning, of time in which he was member of no band, under no senior Master, in whence he was to spend in meditation and perfection of form in the Dances of the Blades, but that is not what he did.


         While he did spend much time in meditation, it was not the meditation of bodily stillness that Dancers had honored through time immemorial. His meditation required movement. Complete, unconscious movement driven by the forces he could feel in the world about him, starting in the way his first (still) meditations had allowed him to dimly see.


         He would walk, in the deep sands, alone, except when he drew the curious attention of some animal brave enough to follow something the size of a man through the sands. While walking, eyes most often closed, often with his whole face covered by the linens used to shield one from sudden dust storms whose weakness was a far cry from flesh-stripping sandstorms of the Warming season, he would alternate breathing so shallowly that his body felt surreal, his vision, when he opened his eyes, was strangely sluggish, and clouded, with a very narrow expanse, and the whole of his awareness was coiled in a small point of light about two fingers' width behind his eyeballs, and centered in his forehead.


         In this state, there was a bare periphery of the world for him. It was the sound of his blood moving sluggishly, heart beating weakly, lungs barely making a raspy whisper.


         Then he would deepen his breathing, and expand that consciousness, pushing it to the boundaries of his body, feeling the world as an untrained mind and body do, then deepen his breath further, and push that awareness out further, a jarring step outside of the confines of the body, an ability to see the energies and awareness of any living thing within the scope of his expanded sentience. Eyes closed, he could identify not only the location, but they type of animal or plant, in his near vicinity, in this first expansion of awareness. The expansion that any full Dancer has been taught to achieve.


         Then he would force his breaths to come faster, yet no less deep, giving him the ability to press his senses yet further, to be able to see the world in his inner eyes clearly, within the space a Dancer will influence with his presence. An expanse and ability that was considered to be "mastery" of meditation, the ability that allowed one to maintain stillness and centering of self, through awareness of "other than self" around him or her.


         And finally, a step that Shahtun believed no other Master had yet learned of, or, if they had, they had not made it any part of the communal teachings, he would drop the depth of breathing, breathing only "at the bottom of the lungs" at the pace of a dog's pant after a hard hunt in the heat of the day...and this would make his blood SING.





         When he felt the iron in his blood singing harmony with the steel of his blades, he would begin to dance. Not Dance, none of the prescribed movements of the Dances of the Blades, but to move his body in balance and harmony with the hugely expanded consciousness that accompanied this final, transcendental state. He was a burning light in a sea of lights, bright and dim, tossed about on seas of uncontrolled, bucking waves of energy. To be balanced in this, one had to give his body away, entirely, become purely that burning light, and use will alone to keep wave from extinguishing light, light from overshadowing a weaker light, or being overpowered by stronger or more numerous lights.


         When he was like this, Shahtun could feel the world spinning around its center, while it traveled around the sun, he could see the moon, even in broad daylight, dancing her way around the world, the sun spinning its way around clusters of others, some weaker, some stronger...and he could feel the gnats moving around the fruit of the hardy desert plants, the scorpions under the ground, the spiders in their lairs laced through the branches of a thorny bush, which he could feel as an entity of its own, as well.


         And this is when his Dance would begin.


         A swaying step, almost a stumble, then an arm outstretched, and an oddly perfectly balanced lurch to a side, a swirl dissolving into a crouch. Faster, and faster, and faster, until he needed the weight of his blades in outstretched arms to maintain the rhythm and center to his motion.


         SNAP would the blades materialize in his hands. Not the same, but varied as demanded by the motions, sometimes sheathing one, and slipping out another as his Dance called for, done all in one sharp, impeccable, and snake-strike-fast movement.


         His movements would begin to take on the appearance of frenzy, madness. Of control lost. His body contorting, stepping, twisting, swaying this way and that, as if possessed by a demon intent on destroying the carnal body he could not have for himself.


         Soon, his arms and legs, the edges and points of his blades, his feet, hands, head, would all appear to be nothing so much as vague ghosts formed of blistering heat rising from the ground. And the dust and sand would rise, in an ever-increasing cloud around his base, climbing, with the frenzy, to conceal his whole body, blur that it had become.


         This might go on for minutes, it might go on for hours, but every time the spell was broken, Shahtun was standing perfectly still, breathing normally, pulse that of a man at rest. The only sign of his "madness" given in the patterns in the dust and sand, which could not lie, and gave proof that he had taken impossibly long steps or leaps, had used his hands as feet, here and there, leaving no sign of the blade that had undeniably been in the hand, throughout this gyration, of places where the back, edge, or point of a blade had been made to take the place of toes or heels, indistinct bowls, with a swept pattern in them evidence of where his head had been used as a pivot.


         And every time, after this madness had passed, there would be evidence of its unworldly giftedness. A small creature neatly killed and gutted, ready for fire, or sun-frying on the basalt or volcanic glass surfaces that might be found. A fruit, ripe, and unspoiled, or root or body of a plant, unearthed, and pierced or split, to give him access to the wet innards.


         His Dance was part and whole of life, death, and existence. So long as he could reach it, the Gods would continue to gift him with rewards for dancing It to their glory.








         A dirty and ragged madman, seen stumbling or in frenzied madness, through the Dry Lands...Shahtun was a folk tale before the second full moon had passed from the day he became a Master.


         His tale would grow to legend, and the legend of one of his students would, later, grow to be mythos.