7 - Life itself sang to me

The people of Yeola-e feel the semanakraseye as a part of themselves living; if he dies, they feel a part of themselves die.

The runners of the Workfast Proclamatory, who'd take the news to the rest of Yeola-e, were gone even before I saw his corpse, and Assembly went back into session at once, with my Aunt Tyeraha taking up the crystal as regent semanakraseye. In Tiryina there was almost war; some of the darya semanakraseyeni, the Demarchic Guard, who were close to him were posted there, and had to be held back from attacking the nearest Enchian village by others.

In the cities, the people wrapped their heads in black, closed the markets and workfasts, wept in the streets, did the feeling-dances of anger and of grief. And everyone, at first, clamored for war, saying that this, if anything, was an attack. We are not used to assassinations, unlike Lakans or Arkans, who barely look up from their fields if a politician gets knifed.

His funeral was held the next evening. For the day he had lain in flowers for the people to see, one by one, as he had liked to do in life. It took the whole day for all who came to pass. It was my grandmother who touched the torch to his pyre, seeing him out of this world as she had seen him into it. The ashes were gone in half a day, given to farmers, a pinch apiece, for scattering over their fields, so as to lend his strong life-force to their earth.

My family went the next three days being entirely cared for, as per custom. Then came my aunt’s Kiss of the Lake, so I got to see it again.

Enjaliansi, King of Tor Ench, swore the highest oaths that the assassin had acted alone and unknown to him, and investigated for us. There were no answers to be got out of the man; after using his one surprise-stroke on my father he’d had to do what murderers are not used to, look into a warrior’s face rather than her back. My mother killed him with her knife. I remembered the blood on her shirt.

The murderer had done it to avenge an elder brother my father had killed with his own hand in the war, and lacking the courage for open challenge, had nursed his anger over years into peacetime. For something any warrior would do in war; it was the worst kind of madness, chosen.

I think he might also have wanted to make a name for himself in history. If it was to burn himself a fiery place in our memory forever, he certainly succeeded. He twists his knife in my own heart whenever there is something I would have done for, or shown, my father. This is why I do not give his name. I won’t help preserve it.

To show goodwill, King Enjaliansi had the man’s wife, children and remaining brothers all beheaded. Goodwill, he said in answer to my aunt’s remonstrations, cannot be conveyed in half-measures. At least it meant he wished peace. After many bitter debates, which hurt the heart to hear, the war vote went a strong charcoal.

Three of my father’s wisdom teeth went to my remaining parents, and the fourth to me. That was his known wish. That he had never written a will didn’t matter, of course, since, being semanakraseye, he had nothing to bequeath. His ivory comb had been, in name, my mother’s. She gave it to me.

I started to understand life would never be the same. Grief aged, darkening like meat; I began to wish back the day he had died when it had been possible to pretend he hadn’t, when life had been recently-enough disturbed to still resemble the innocent time before. In the morning when I should have seen him kiss my other parents goodbye for the day, in Assembly where he should be holding the crystal and saying, “Order, sib Servants!”, just before sundown when he and I should be chasing the last edge of the day up the mountain together, I felt him killed again, killed and killed, the truth of it ground into me like the sword-stroke practiced a thousand times.

Of course I had my own reason for wanting time to slow down. I was measuring it. I had made an estimate for myself of thirty, the number I have always gone by. Thirty years, for a seven-year-old, is a long time; it would have been much worse to learn, I think, at twenty-five. But I was suddenly aware that days added up to moons, and moons to years, something I had never given a thought to before. I was never again scolded for dawdling. People say it is my nature to hurry; I suppose it is now, again, like the sword-stroke practiced a thousand times.

None of the thought-out reasons for keeping my foreknowledge to myself entered my head then. I said nothing, and it would be common knowledge if not for this, only because I felt everyone had enough to bear right now. I remember thinking, “It would just make Mama even sadder. Let it wait. It’s not like it’s going to go away.”

I went back to training after the three full-mourning days were over. Esora-e and Urakaila, one of the other teachers, sword-sparred to inspire us as they often did. Always before it had given me joy; now I found myself thinking, ‘What are they doing?’ Then when it came time to wrestle, it was, ‘What am I doing?’ I was with Mana first, and he kept beating me, miming breaking my neck or crushing my throat with the usual glee; but each time I got him into a position where he was at my mercy, he would somehow squirm loose, my hands losing their strength when it came time to finish him. Against Sachara and Krero and Nyera it was exactly the same. I felt Esora-e’s eyes on me.

This was something to deal with, I saw, and to decide on. What worried me most was that I might be a coward at heart, my father’s death having brought it out in me. Simple to remedy: I would climb Haranin to the edge of the highest cliff I knew the way to, search my heart, and, if I did see I was indeed a coward, throw myself off. Yeola-e never needs a coward for a semanakraseye.

Before I could slip away, though, Esora-e stopped me at the gate of the School of the Sword, led me into the antechamber where the Sword of Saint Mother—the one she gave to the first Yeolis from her own hand—hangs, and sat me down with him before it. A year before, when I’d entered the School for the first time, and wrapped my hand round the grip of the Sword as is traditional for new students, I’d also lifted it, which had created a big stir. I remembered the sound of the chains from which it hung, like a brook’s trickling. Yet now this beautiful thing had a stain on it. What was bothering me came to me in a flash: what I was learning to do in this place was what had been done to my father.

I thought of my bright promise, the polished wristlets I would get on my graduation, the triumphal parades I would lead through the town as I had seen my father do, flowers and streams of wine raining on me, and Chirel, forged in the perfect curve which, extended, would form the circle of rya-kya, nothing/everything—all these things I’d looked forward to making my life about. All lies, this beauty—all a mask worn by death. My body suddenly didn’t seem my own, going hot and cold by turns. It, and my soul, were being shaped into those of a killer; the joy of training itself was a betrayal. Even my name, which means “lion’s heart,” was a thing of war, and it was my only name. I wanted to scream for mama, or flee into some dark warm cave where no one would ever see me again, like the one I’d crept out of not so long ago. Or leap off the cliff.

Esora-e put two very gentle hands on my shoulders. “Chevenga, tell me what’s in your heart.”

“I never want to be a warrior.” With my eyes buried in my hands, I could not see his expression, but I heard a long deep breath, a readying one like before a fight.

“Well… it took courage even to say that.” He was worried about the same thing, that I was in truth a coward. “Look at me, my child, and tell me why.”

I looked him in the eyes. “I never want to kill anyone.”

His mustache twitched. I thought of how he liked to show off his scars, and tell what happened to the warriors who’d given them to him; how he talked of “full-splitting the child-rapers” and seeing their blood fountain, laughing, while my mothers both pursed their lips. I thought of my blood-father; I’d picked a flower on the mountain, and he’d said, “You’ve killed it. Up here where summer is so short and so it takes so long for them to grow back… well, there are many more. But never forget what you are doing. That’s the hardest thing, in war: never forgetting what you are doing.” He understands best, I thought, as always. Understood; now he is picked.

“Anyone?” said my shadow-father. “Even if he is trying to kill you?” He spoke the name of my father’s murderer, which I never write so that it will be forgotten. “What he did was twice wrong: murder, and for mindless hate. We kill for the same reason Saint Mother gave us the Sword: life, and only in fair fights within our borders. Play that out in your mind, lad; you have before.”

I did as he asked, imagining, as a child will, the enemy as a monster. I parried the blows in my mind as always, but when the time came to strike him dead, my hand in my imagination went weak as it had in real life in the class. “I couldn’t win,” I said. “I should not be there.”

“Play it properly. He will kill you, if you don’t kill him. You know that.”

This time I made the enemy truly dangerous, awakening my own fear, and it went as it always had before; any feeling for him was gone from my heart. But afterwards as he lay dead, he turned from a monster back into a man, and I saw him on a pyre like my father’s, heard his wife and his small children weeping, and felt remorse to my bones. But the next enemy was coming, and the next… I would never tire, for that would be choosing death, but keep going, kill, regret, kill, regret, all my life. With any luck I’d die before it drove me mad. Never imagine children cannot see their future.

In this tangle there had to be a thread of pure rightness somewhere. I thought furiously, my hands curled into fists, until I found it, shining with truth’s magnificence. “There shouldn’t be any wars!”

I thought his face would light up with inspiration, as my heart had. Instead he laughed bitterly, and pulled a lock of my hair. “Nothing truer! Yet those pesky foreigners keep attacking us. You’d think they’d never heard the wisdom of the great sage Chevenga.”

I’d thought it was brilliant; certainly not deserving of mockery. As always, anger made me stubborn. “When I’m semanakraseye, I’ll end it. There won’t be any more wars. That’s what Saint Mother really wanted.”

His dark brows went up under his fore-curls, which had no grey in them then. “You will? By not being a warrior? You’ll go visit King Astyardk in Laka and charm him into stopping his thugs from raiding our farmfasts? When King Enjaliansi of Tor Ench lays claim to our port towns because they were inside the old empire a thousand years ago, you’ll say, ‘You can’t have them, but I don’t like killing people, so let’s not have a war, all right?’ You’ll sweet-talk the herd-raiders: ‘I’m not a warrior, so will you dear fellows kindly stop absconding with our sheep’?”

“I’ll make them listen,” I said, stabbing three fingers of my sword-hand into the stone floor as I’d seen Servants do on their desks when making a strong point. “Like when two of us quarrel and Mama makes us do chiravesa, imagine being the other, I’ll say ‘You be me and I’ll be you.’”

“So that you will gain understanding of why they abscond with our sheep, and they, why we’d like to keep them?” He laughed again. “Don’t look at me like that, Fourth Chevenga. It’s not you I’m making fun of, it’s your age. You’ve spoken and I’ve listened; now I’ll speak and you listen.” He took my face between his weapon-callused hands, his eyes turning the grey of storms.

“You think there is always a parent standing over people who are arguing. But with you and some greedy tyrant, there will be none. This is foreigners we speak of, ‘those who will not listen to your words of justice and sense.’ She was right; they came. And they still come.

“While you were showing off your naivete you were also insulting your ancestors. You think you were the first ever to think of making peace? But it cannot be done without a sheathed sword at one’s side, to show the other he’s best off being reasonable. Otherwise what he will demand, ultimately, is all our land and all of us as slaves. All-Spirit, why am I saying this? You know your history, at least the shape of it… you’re just saying you don’t want to kill. You’d leave it to others.

“Well, all right, no one has to do everything; we serve each other best by giving each other our greatest gifts. True?” Knowing what this was leading up to, I didn’t answer. “Of course. And what are you better at, than fighting?” He was right; I was good at my book studies, but a semanakraseye is not an advocate or an academic. I was competent enough at playing the harp and flute and making things with my hands; I had no other uncommon gifts to offer. Then something came to me: “Making friends.” I had succeeded in befriending anyone I’d wanted to, as long as I could remember.

He waved it off. “You can’t make friends with foreigners. Oh, they might fake it; then when you are fooled, thinking what great friends they are, they’ll stab you, and Yeola-e, in the back. Of the other skills, from which come callings, you are best at fighting—deny it?”

I signed charcoal but said, “I have a calling: I’m going to be semanakraseye.”

“Ah, well, yes,” he said, “I was coming to that. Tell me, will you send out others to do what you yourself would not?” It fell to us to command; thus we became warriors. My blood-father’s words; I felt weak and sick.

Plenty of semanakraseyel, in fact, have not been warriors, including my aunt, who served as regent after my blood-father was killed. The old age of kraiyal-semanakraseyel, warrior-demarchs, ended with Notyere’s starting the War of the Travesty to make himself king, after which it was made illegal for a semanakraseye to fight for a century and a half. It will likely never again be compulsory. But my grandmother and blood-father had both done it, and I had always intended to.

“Imagine, the Enchians invade, and you send out an army to die on Yeoli furrows while you sit safe in Assembly Palace. The numbers are even, but we lose and ten thousand die. Those who are left bind up their wounds and wonder what went wrong, how it could have been different. ‘I know one thing,’ one will say. ‘Fourth Chevenga would have been a great warrior had he not quit his training, because he didn’t want to kill anyone. With another First General First as good as Tennunga, think how the battle would have gone.’ Another will say, ‘My father got killed by an Enchian too, and I didn’t quit my training.’ All down the line they’ll curse you, and why not? You’ll have denied them your greatest gift.

“Think of those who rightfully envy you! ‘I wish I had the strength and quickness he was born with; I’d have a better chance of living, and Yeola-e a better chance of winning. And he’s the semanakraseye…! If he doesn’t give his best, why should anyone?’ ”

I threw my hand up between his to grab my forelock, tears burning in my eyes and sickness in my guts.

“You were bred to be a warrior, Chevenga. Your blood-parents—too gentle, he was, and she is, they wouldn’t tell you that. He and his blood-mother before him married warriors so that their children would be better warriors. Why do you think the Shae-Arano-el still do the stream-test, and the old way? You will win the tournaments and gain the promotions and be loved by all who fight under you, not by chance. All their choices led up to you. And you would throw it away—what do you think your blood-father would think if he knew?”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking only of the cliff, and how free I would feel with the wind rushing through my hair, faster and faster, knowing the answer to all dilemmas was an instant away.

“Chevenga, we are all bound to duty. Should you turn from yours, you’ll be proven a coward, for all you are fearless of death; a coward is, after all, one ruled by fear of what he must do. In the end, my son and Tennunga’s, I don’t think you are. Grief will turn anyone’s head for a time. But in the end, it lies with you to prove it. Whatever hinders you, you’ll have to conquer, or fail entirely. Think about it.” He got up and walked away, leaving me alone with the Sword.

As I climbed Haranin, his words rang in my ears, but the words of the dead spoke truer to my heart. Unwaveringly, my father had said, “As always, you choose.”

I had sometimes thought they were harsh words; now I knew they were the ultimate tenderness. Everyone loved me; only he had understood me. Now I knew fully how alone I was, with him gone.

The wind sang through the crags, growing cool; clouds covered the sun and the many-hued striations in the rock turned dull. Past the tall pines and then the stunted ones I picked my way up. On the edge I sat, dangling my legs, the shining scythe that was Terera Lake, and the anthill that was the town below, paled by distance.

I felt my limbs whose strength showed when I wrestled, my hands that were faster than anyone else’s at hot hands and five stones; tightening my arms I took my weight onto them, while a hawk flying far above the green forest below hung tiny as a dust-speck between my feet. I flexed my muscles, which I had always, wrongly, thought were mine. Esora-e was right; he’d only adhered to what I’d already been taught. But my blood-father was right too. Even in the time of our greatest helpless, our path always has a fork.

As always, I would choose; go on with my training, or leap. My life was bound to the semanakraseyesin, and the semanakraseyesin, at least for me, to the sword; but I was not necessarily bound to life—less so, now, than most. I shifted forward a little, so my hips were just on the edge. Had the right wind blown then, my story would have been this short. None did, but for a moment I leaned, and thought I was gone.

There was a rushing like a waterfall through my ears. The ground was suddenly tenuous under me, as if the nothingness beyond its edge somehow made all solids near it dubious. The wind filled with song, the notes of the harmonic singer, one the dark and steady tone like a stone flute’s, the other soaring high and bitter and wild like the wind itself. Bound to one core like those of a jewel, facets of my life flashed in my mind: my turquoise, blue and purple cloak, the height of the mountain racing all through my legs after a fast climb, the oyster of the chicken in honey sauce, Assembly Hall with its sacred solemnity, the thousand fascinations of the marketplace, the wildness of the grown-ups dancing at the love-feast, the swelling of pride as I found I could do something I had not been able to do before. From the green land close to me, all the things and people I knew called me to return to them; from the land blued by distance, all those I did not know yet called me to wait for them, their voice the breath of All-spirit, their collective name Yeola-e. The song ran through my head: “Do we defend it grimly, like a miser his gold? No; stiffness is the way of death. We choose; always, we choose. Do we subsist and grasp? No; for goods are not happiness. We celebrate life, and live a celebration.” Life itself sang to me, roared and turned silvery in my heart, and my tears were like those we weep hearing music too beautiful to bear.

When the wind’s voice faded to a whisper again, I lay flat on the rock and wept. For my blood-father, the first tears I shed that were for his loss, not my own. For myself, fated to lose life too soon. For all people who ever died, whom I imagined in their terrible number, more multifarious than any currently-living crowd could be, doing and using things that were incomprehensible to us now, a thousand peoples who had died as one with their devices and arts and knowledge beyond imagining in the Fire, never properly mourned because not enough were left to mourn them. I wept for the cow slaughtered, the starflower picked. I wept for all that must die: all that lived.

In the story of the Fire as my grandmother had told it to me, power had been in the hands of kings so that people could do little, but everyone had known it was coming. I asked her, “What did they do?”

“No one knows it all, but you can imagine. Some excised any thought of it from their heads and lived as if there were no threat. Some lived like warriors, fast and reckless and with no thought for tomorrow, since there’d be no tomorrow. Some went insane, turning frozen or berserk; some withered inwardly and died in spirit, then in body. Some prepared for it, building strongholds deep in the land, and ended up yearning for it to come just to end their fear. Some debated and protested bravely in the attempt to stop it. Some prayed, and trusted in gods to prevent it. Some resigned themselves to it, and some hoped beyond hope it would not happen.”

“But they all died,” I said. “So, in the end, what they did didn’t matter.”

“No,” she said. “But while they lived, it did.”

I made the first of my personal laws then. I had, I guessed, about half the time I might have otherwise expected, so in that time I should do two times as many things as others, and love people two times as hard, to make up for it. I think of it in the childish wording to this day.

I got up from the edge of the cliff and went back down to the School. The Sword hung black between walls of plain white, unadorned, ungraven. We do not surround our sigil of war with scenes of glorious battles or splendid triumphs, of the nobility of war nor even the drama. The Sword hangs plain, neither celebrated or despised, neither reproaching nor praising, neither dark nor light, but equal parts of each, entwined with and contained by the other. The pain is there, and the joy; the loss and the win. “Never forget what you are doing,” my blood-father had said. He’d never said either, “Do it” or “Don’t do it.” I had not known the dark half; then when I’d learned it, I had forgotten the light. Now I saw both.

I curled my fingers around the grip of the Sword. ‘Esora-e wants me to fight because it’s what he wants,’ I thought, ‘not because he sees this. He doesn’t. Well, I see it, so I’ll fight for it, nothing else, and if he doesn’t like it, too bad, but I bet he won’t notice.’ Once again the Sword rose in my hand, a little bit more easily.