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by
Geoffrey Thorne
His blade entered Sekadi’s body between two ribs on her lower right side and proceeded to carve an elliptical path through her abdomen. It came out again so quickly that it was only by the sudden spray of blood that she knew she’d been touched at all.
Her opponent’s speed surprised her. She had never thought one so massive could move so quickly. His technique was also hard to identify. There was an improvisational quality to the big male’s form that had kept her off balance for most of their spar. She would have admired him if she hadn’t so badly wanted him dead.
Her breath came hard suddenly and she realized that her lung, among other things, must have been pierced. In moments she would be unable to stand.
“Break,” said Mosuoe Nemisa on her right. Sekadi caught a glimpse of the master’s scarlet robes flapping ever so slightly on the cinnamon breeze. Beyond Nemisa, through the thin afternoon haze, the sun was just considering its eventual dip toward the horizon.
The big male froze instantly at the Mosuoe’s words– the curve of his great sword gleaming with the fires of the reflected sun.
Sekadi’s own weapons, the willow daggers, were clever little things, their blades as thin as marsh grass, whose edges could sever bone. In the right hands they could turn a crescent blade attack or separate an opponent’s head from his shoulders.
They were an archaic weapon, well out of modern favor, but Sekadi was smaller than most. Mosuoe Oshun felt they suited her better than would a crescent blade or sword.
The young novice had chafed at the switch, declaring she would master the crescent blade whether Oshun approved or not, but the master was adamant.
It had taken time and Sekadi would never actually admit it but she soon came to see the wisdom of Oshun’s decree. Within mere weeks her clumsiness with the little blades evaporated completely in favor of the sort of deadly precision most warriors only dreamed of. Though she still trained with all the other types, the willow daggers were her favorite blades now.
Her enemy owed them a drink. Honor dictated she draw his blood as hers had been drawn– no matter what Mosuoe Nemisa might command.
“Hsaa!” she said softly and lunged for the big male.
She used Shango’s Reverse to strike at him, hoping to catch him unawares as he had caught her.
She sprang into the air, the arc of her body implying a strike at his right flank. As she reached apogee and began to descend, she twisted her torso causing her to spin at the last instant and, in theory, fooling her opponent into exposing his neck.
The big male, at first as still as stone, now rotated his sword just so–just enough to turn the willow daggers’ dark blades away from his throat. His block also somehow added torque to her spin, redirecting her momentum and sending her sprawling to the far side of the spar circle.
She landed with a thick, flat thud and, try as she might, could not rise again. The impact forced out the remainder of her wind. She would not draw another easy breath until her wounds were tended.
Through slitted eyes she watched as Mosuoe Nemisa strode gracefully towards her.
“I told you to break, novice,” came Nemisa’s reed-thin voice. “Disobedience can be costly.”
Her student coughed, spewing small golden flecks of her blood on the dark clay floor.
“He cut me,” she wanted to say. “He forced steel into my flesh. He drew blood even though this was a simple training spar. Honor requires payment for that.”
She wanted to say all that but she was having a hell of a time just drawing a breath. The best she could manage were, “Blood,” and “Honor.”
Mosuoe Nemisa smiled down at her pupil, showing the hint of her needle-sharp incisors. Her milk white hair, pulled back into a single thick braid down her back made the ridges on her forehead more prominent, her entire aspect like that of a sand hawk.
“Find Mosuoe Nkati within the hour,” she said. “Or you will soon have neither.”
The Mosuoe turned her back then and moved off towards the big male, who was again standing motionless at the center of the ring.
#
“Who is he?” said Sekadi as Mosuoe Nkati ran a healing gem over her abdomen; its magics sent a chill through her and she shivered.
“Be still, novice,” said Nkati.
“He never speaks,” she said, ignoring his ministrations.
“Speaking is over-praised,” said Nkati. “And mostly over done.”
She was too deep into her mull to note the point in his tone. He withdrew the gem and murmured a Closing Rhyme.
“He’s too old to be a student,” she said, stifling a wince as last of her wound closed. Nkati, like Mosuoe Nemisa, was terribly old, older even than Sekadi’s grandsire. He too favored the single braid of white and the robes, though his were Healer blue.
Her cousin, Lebo, often made sport of healers.
“Their only job is to cheat a warrior of his rightful place in the Hands of Olodumare,” Lebo would say. He was a thick-witted lout but he was popular for his talent with the heart cleaver.
Sekadi would have given her whole inheritance to see him make sport of Nkati or any of her teachers, cleaver or no. Then she would have happily danced at his funeral. The idea that he might find eternal bliss in the Hands of Olodumare while Nkati, as a healer, would not, was laughable.
For all their advanced age, each of the temple's Mosuoes was as lethal as basilisk venom and five times as quick. She hoped one day to be half as deadly as even this wizened little teacher.
“We are all students,” said Nkati as he returned his instruments to their cubby.
“You sound like Nemisa,” she said, hopping down from the small exam platform.
“Mosuoe Nemisa,” said Nkati, “is wise.”
#
Sekadi’s second attempt to kill the big male came between strategy class and her reporting for punitive scullery duty, the result of comments she’d made during Mosuoe Okosi’s lecture on lowland ambush scenarios.
The big male was moving through the seventy-seven battle stances in the smaller outdoor practice ring, apparently oblivious to the world around him.
Sekadi leaped out at him hoping to catch him around the throat with the garrote she’d improvised from her boot ties.
Just as she was about the bring the loop down, the big male spun away swinging one arm up into her stomach and knocking her to the ground.
Sekadi sat where she fell, wheezing, while the big male continued on with stances sixty-three thru seventy-seven, never once acknowledging her presence.
* * *
Her third attempt on the big male’s life came after scimitar drills and involved a borrowed long sword, some spark stones and a length of iron chain. It too failed and Sekadi spent a good deal of the rest of her life trying to block the incident from her mind.
After that abortive try she was ordered off the grounds until evening meal.
* * *
As she gazed down on it from her high perch, Sekadi considered the Temple of the Ochre Blade.
It stood in the lee of the mountains that grew up out of a great salt plane the locals called the Shield of Jakuta. It consisted of five large stone buildings arranged in a rough semicircle around two smaller ones set side by side.
Three of the large buildings were for sparring and the study of the various martial forms. One was the novice dormitory, the final the Mosuoes’ cloister. The smallest buildings were the armory and the Pilgrim’s quarters. Sekadi wondered on occasion why the quarters had not been converted to something more useful– say an armory for modern weapons.
Pilgrims never came this way anymore. That practice was older than the mosuoes, even the temple itself, and it was finished. The Gods were either dead or so concerned with their own private squabbles that they had little time left to answer prayers. Heroes rode the Great Beasts now as steeds instead of killing them and battled against opponents neither the mosuoes nor most of their students would ever see.
The Shadow Trolls– the thrice-cursed Vanir– even current allies like the Brotherhood of the Storm, had provided a quality of sport far outmatching any found in dusty tales.
There had been rumors of a war in the offing. She’d heard the eager chatter around her father’s table whenever her older brothers and sisters returned from their questing.
The words “Bifrost” and ”Heliopolis” came up often but Sekadi had no idea what they meant. She did take note of the strange pall that always came over her father once a sibling had gone.
Hiding in his weapons chest she’d witnessed with her own eyes an actual tear fall from one of his eyes. The sight was so unsettling to her that she’d gasped aloud, alerting him to her presence. He’d punished her for her eavesdropping with a lightning fast cuff to the cheek.
“Stealth is for cowards,” he’d said as he helped her up. Her father favored the old ways. He didn’t believe in shadow cloaks or spell scrolls or anything but the warrior’s own skill. She doubted he’d ever learned to cast a single battle charm.
Still, it hadn’t been much of a blow. She’d taken worse from her playfellows and laughed. Indeed, she’d handed out worse beatings more times than she could count. It was as if her father’s heart hadn’t been in it.
His reticence puzzled her.
She had been even more perplexed when he’d trundled her off to the Temple of the Ochre Blade for “traditional” martial training. If they really were going to war, she should have been sent to Battle School like idiot cousin Lebo, her siblings and all the other young nobles of her age.
Learning to conjure thunderbolts in freefall or to turn the fiery breath of an enemy’s dragon back on itself was what she needed, not lessons in the use of oversized carving knives. But father was father and his word was her work. Off she went.
“Sekadi?” said a voice below her.
She looked down from her perch, a thin shelf of rock that jutted out from the mountainside. She liked it for the view it gave her of the temple grounds and also because so few of her fellow students would attempt the climb.
The voice belonged to Kalefo, of course. The little tyro had taken to tracking her whenever he had a free moment, which, apparently, was whenever she had one. He looked like a battle sprite standing there in his white tunic and leggings. His eyes were glittery saucers and his mouth was full of questions.
Sekadi sighed.
Kalefo was harmless enough in his way, sort of like a zhor cub; all arms and legs and teeth. He just hadn’t learned yet to take a hint.
Mostly she tolerated his following and his incessant questions– Why did you hit me, Sekadi? Why don’t you like the crescent blade, Sekadi? How many times did you get scullery duty this week, Sekadi? - and on and on. Today, just now, she had things on her mind, and no time for little boys who could barely heft a sword.
“What do you want, Kalefo,” she said, not caring.
“Did you know that Mosuoe Imani is older than Shango’s Gate?” he said in that high-pitched lilt of his.
“I’m busy, Kalefo,” she said.
“I told Koyotae,” said Kalefo, ignoring her. “But he said I was either stupid or a liar.”
“He struck you, I suppose,” said Sekadi. Koyotae was somewhat less tolerant of Kalefo’s endless dissertations.
Kalefo nodded. “Many times,” he said.
“Good,” said Sekadi. “Go and tell him that Mosuoe Selemeng keeps a pixie in her weapons cabinet. Perhaps he’ll kill you.”
“What are you doing, Sekadi?” said Kalefo.
Sekadi’s hand strayed to a small stone that sat beside her on the ledge. It was jagged on one side and fit her hand perfectly. At the right velocity the stone’s impact against Kalefo’s forehead might knock him cold. She seriously considered testing her theory but the little novice’s question was still in the way.
What was she doing?
She’d been at the temple for months now. She knew its layout as well as she knew her own palm print. Yet she’d been sitting on her perch for hours– since just after her third release from the healer’s chambers– missing meals and classes, staring at each of the buildings in succession as if they were the most interesting and unusual structures in the world.
For the last while she’d been particularly focused upon the Mosuoe’s cloisters. She’d watched the big male and Mosuoe Nemisa enter but neither had, as yet, emerged.
Sekadi returned the stone to its original place and said, “What does Mosuoe Ibeji say is the first step to beating an opponent?”
“Um,” said Kalefo. “Pike to the throat?”
“No, idiot,” said Sekadi, hoping down from her high roost. “The first step to defeating an opponent is knowing him.”
As the horizon devoured the last of sun, the temple walls, normally a sandy white, seemed suddenly drenched in blood. Sekadi took it as an omen of her mission’s success.
The big male– shards, she hated having to call him that– was still somewhere inside the Mosuoe’s cloisters either alone or with Nemisa. There was something between them; that was clear. Sekadi was suddenly sure that, if she could find out what it was, who he was, she would be able to best him at last.
Stealth might be for cowards but it was a damned useful tool for gathering information. Mosuoe Erinle never noticed her crouched behind the massive sculpture of Heru the Hunter that guarded the cloisters entrance. His great crimson-robed figure moved slowly past her and off towards the temple pantry. Erinle had won many battles over the spans but none, apparently, with his stomach.
When she was sure he wasn’t coming back, Sekadi stole into the cloisters through the single open archway.
There were tales among the novices that the Mosuoe’s cloisters contained forbidden weapons, exotic hidden traps, even the imprisoned soul of the last surviving god. Instead Sekadi found herself creeping though bland clay corridors adorned only with simple torches. Silk draperies hung over every occasional door, their colors corresponding to those of the robes of each Mosuoe.
The absolute silence of the place made Sekadi’s hackles rise– not in fear but in anticipation of victory.
Sekadi had once heard Mosuoe Nemisa make reference to the fact that her personal quarters were on the western corner of the second floor. Casting around she was gratified to find a small staircase at the far end of the hall.
* * *
The second floor was much like the first– a long corridor with silk draperies on one side denoting entrances to several rooms. Sekadi crept past each in turn taking care that their occupants, if any, noted nothing more from her passing than the tiniest stray breeze.
Eventually she stood beside the entrance to Mosuoe Nemisa’s room. Only then did she realize she had not thought things through. What could she do now? Not burst in on Nemisa and the big male. Not stand here, exposed to the sight of any master who might enter the hall.
If stealth was for cowards, what was retreat?
Sekadi glanced up and noticed for the first time the great wooden beams supporting the cloisters’ roof and which ran the length of the hall. From outside it seemed that the roof’s inner surface was flush with the support beams but, now that she was close enough, she could see that there was some space between. There wasn’t much but maybe...
Sekadi dropped into a crouch and sprang upward, her powerful fingers finding instant purchase on the beam’s top edge. The only sound was that of the fabric of her tunic and leggings rubbing against each other.
When she was small her father had delighted in her natural acrobatic skill, calling her 'little tree-cat' and sometimes 'birdcatcher.'
“One day that speed will be the death of many warriors,” he would say, laughing his barrel drum laugh. Thoughts of those happy days now went through her like a scythe, making her wince. Her father had changed so much since then, become so distant and sad.
With the grace of the tree-cat whose name she had carried, Sekadi crawled quickly along a crossbeam into the space above Mosuoe Nemisa’s room.
She was grateful that older novices were required to dress entirely in black. It made blending into the shadows above the room so much easier. As she had been trained, Sekadi matched her breath cycle to the ebb and flow of the natural air currents and cautiously peered down.
The room was like Mosuoe Nemisa herself, spare in its appointment but with occasional flourishes. Aside from the utilitarian cot, desk and chair there was a small sculpture depicting an ancient warrior in combat with what seemed to be an enormous snake. There were three swords in wall scabbards as well as one archaic scimitar. The remnant of what had once been a clan banner was draped across one wall but it was too torn and stained for Sekadi to determine which house it represented. Beyond those items, Nemisa’s chamber was bare.
She had barely begun to ponder her next course when she heard a muffled thud from beyond the far wall.
Sekadi moved on along the crossbeam, surprised to find it continued past the interior wall of Nemisa’s chamber and out over something much larger.
She had wondered at the odd layout of the cloisters, why the master’s rooms were so small when the building itself was so large. Now she knew.
The cloister housed a massive sparring room. In fact, it was little more than that. The diminutive living quarters were more of an afterthought.
Sekadi’s eyes went wide as Kalefo’s when she saw Mosuoe’s Ogun and Oshun going at each other with what looked like heavy chains with blades at their tips. Sekadi had never seen such weapons much less watched two of her masters attempt to slice each other to bits with them.
There was something else about their sparring which was different from those Sekadi had previously witnessed. There was no form to their battle, no preset attacks or defenses. The masters and their blades were like liquids flowing into and out of each other. And not one drop of blood was spilled between them.
Oshun’s beauty had turned many a warrior’s head in her youth. Her husband Ogun’s striking figure had been highly prized as well. Now, as they neared dotage, the younger novices made sport of their long union.
“Do you think they ever join anymore?” someone would say.
“Not if they have to look at each other,” somebody would reply.
It was an easy joke. Love and passion were toys of the young, after all. At least the young thought so. Sekadi wondered what would happen to those jibes if her fellows could see masters Oshun and Ogun now.
Their movements were so much less akin to battle and so much more like a sensual dance that Sekadi was momentarily embarrassed to watch.
Her eyes, averted from the first spar, drifted to another corner of the room where she found a more palatable sight.
Mosuoe Nemisa walked in a slow circle around the kneeling form of the big male. He was rigidly holding the position of atonement and, if the tension in his shoulders and triceps was any indication, had been for some time.
Nemisa was speaking to him, Sekadi could hear that much from where she was, but the tone was too soft for her to lift out individual words.
Trusting that she would not be heard or seen by those so far below, Sekadi crept slowly along her beam until she was right above her quarry.
Forcing her pulse to slow she settled down into her haunches to take in the tableau beneath.
“—but warriors embrace death,” Mosuoe Nemisa was saying. “It is their spur and it is their partner.”
The big male growled, words maybe, but unintelligible to Sekadi’s ears.
“You shame her with this grief,” said Nemisa. “Her life had meaning and honor. Your tears wash them both away.”
“She was my mate,” said the big male. Sekadi detected a tone of defiance in his voice and something else that reminded her strangely of her own father.
“You have strayed too far from our ways,” said Nemisa. “Raised by humans, mated to one who is not of the Orisha, raising a son outside the Realm . . .”
“The battle dictates,” said the big male. “The hunter adapts.”
Mosuoe Nemisa produced some sort of blunt metal rod from the folds of her sleeve and struck the big male hard and fast across the face. Sekadi was barely able to track the motion.
“Do not quote the words of Eshu to me,” said Nemisa mildly. “You chose your path then as you choose it now. What you steal from your mate is your own doing.”
Mosuoe Nemisa stopped abruptly to the right of the big male.
“You nearly killed my student today,” she said.
“It was an accident,” said the big male.
“It was a loss of control,” said Nemisa sharply. ”As you are, you are unfit to carry a weapon.”
“As you say, Mosuoe Nemisa,” said the big male.
“Such a warrior lives in disgrace,” said Nemisa. ”His life is a worthless husk.”
“That is why I came to you, Mosuoe.”
“You do not know why you came to me,” snapped Nemisa. “You are too full of unbecoming grief to know. It is nearly all you are.”
The big male seemed about to respond to her but kept his peace instead. Noting his internal struggle as well as its result, Mosuoe Nemisa smiled.
“Good,” she said. “That is a start.”
She moved closer to the big male then, dropping into a crouch beside him.
“A warrior without control is an untempered blade,” she said. “One that shatters when an enemy tests it. That is why you came to me.”
“What can I do?” he said quietly.
“We all do only what we must,” said Nemisa.
“I am lost,” said the big male and, for the first time, Sekadi detected true anguish in his voice.
“You must find yourself again,” she said.
Mosuoe Nemisa then walked away, leaving the big male behind, still holding his painful stance.
Sekadi noted that Mosuoes Oshun and Ogun had finished their dance and were also taking their leave of the sparring arena. Having no wish to sleep where she was or to be caught where she should not be, Sekadi crept back the way she came and made her exit from the cloisters.
* * *
Sekadi lay there in the dark, listening. She could hear the other novices’ breath in soft chorus all around her and the gentle rustle of them twisting between sleep and rough sheets but, try as she might, she could not force herself to nod off.
Her mind was a tangle of questions. Barring the Mosuoes, the big male was perhaps the finest warrior she had ever seen. He had bested each of the other senior novices as easily as he had her– though none of them had been sent to the healer. Yet Mosuoe Nemisa had described him as unfit, as lost.
And what was all that about his mate not being of the Orisha and humans having raised him? That couldn’t be true, could it? Humans resembled the Orisha, certainly. They had their place in the wheel of Life but they were little more than animals. The idea that one of the Orisha might mate with one of them, might actually marry one...
No. It was too much. She could not puzzle it. Eventually her body won the battle against her swirling thoughts, allowing the demons of sleep to drag her down.
* * *
Kalefo found her the following day, taking her ease in the shade of the Pilgrim's quarters. Morning had been filled with sword drills and an interminable lecture on the logistics of tunnel warfare after which Sekadi had stolen away from the others to consider her next move against the big male.
“What are you doing, Sekadi?” said Kalefo.
“Right now?” said Sekadi. “Trying not to kill you.”
“Mosuoe Oshun says you always drop your left shoulder when you parry,” said Kalefo.
“Mosuoe Oshun is wise,” said Sekadi.
“She says it’s because you’re too small for the crescent blade and you should stick with the sword,” Kalefo went on.
“Mosuoe Oshun must think highly of you to confide in you this way.”
“Why do you keep up with the crescent blade, Sekadi?” said Kalefo. “Anyone can see Mosuoe Oshun is right.”
“If anyone can see it,” said Sekadi. “It seems stupid to talk about it. Even dangerous.”
Kalefo’s soft angelic features bent as he considered her words. For a moment Sekadi was reminded of cousin Lebo. “Dangerous?” he said. “Why would talking be-”
Sekadi’s fist caught him a sharp blow to the temple and sent him sprawling.
#
It was near sunset before the big male made another appearance. As always, he was in the company of Mosuoe Nemisa. As usual she was talking softly as they walked while he simply gave the occasional nod.
Sekadi paced them, making sure to keep whatever structures she could between them. The conversation of the previous night was still with her, short-circuiting her bloodlust.
If the big male was the untempered blade Mosuoe Nemisa described Sekadi could not restore her honor by killing him. He had to be at his best or his death at her hands would only compound her original disgrace.
Nemisa and the big male passed behind the novice dormitory and out of Sekadi’s sight. There were several practice rings carved in the earth back there as well as a small pool. One could see them all from the upstairs windows.
All the other novices were heading in for afternoon meditation. Sekadi hated meditation. She had a hard enough time sitting still for lectures. Spending two hours on her knees seeking ultimate stillness was like torture.
She’d earn a week’s scullery duty for skipping it but it was punishment she’d accept gladly if she discovered something to help her regain her honor.
* * *
The novice dormitory was a stark contrast to the Mosuoe’s cloisters. Gold-stained tunics, having been tossed haphazardly at laundry bins rather than into, hung on them like bloody war banners. Shoes and parchments and even the occasional communication broach lay wherever their owners had dropped them waiting patiently for their eventual return. Beds were unmade, platters of food teetered precariously on the edges of cabinets, desks or any other vaguely horizontal surface. The place was the chaotic opposite to everything the Mosuoes strove to perfect.
Only the weapons, the crescent blades and scimitars of the novices, their knives and whips and spears hung in pristine readiness on pegs on the longer wall.
Sekadi bounded silently up the stairs to the senior novice’s room. It was only slightly less chaotic than the junior’s space below; Sekadi’s own cot being the center of this particular storm.
She crept to the nearest window and peered down at the practice circles. Sure enough, Mosuoe Nemisa and the big male were moving slowly to the center of the nearest one. Did they mean to spar?
No.
They continued to the other side of the ring, taking up positions on either side of the small pool.
The big male knelt, his sword laid naked and flat across his knees in the position of openness.
Nemisa said something– it sounded like “begin”– and then she walked off, never sparing the big male a backward glance.
#
The sun had almost been eaten by the horizon and still the big male had not moved. Sekadi had missed all her afternoon classes, all her scheduled spars. She was about to miss evening meal but she couldn’t break off from her fascination with him.
“Go down there,” said Mosuoe Nemisa’s voice suddenly beside her. Sekadi hadn’t heard her approach, hadn’t felt even the slightest disturbance in the air. “You want to know him, do you not?”
“I want to kill him,” said Sekadi.
“Yes,” said Mosuoe Nemisa. If there was amusement in her voice, Sekadi couldn’t say. “You’ve been trying. And failing.”
“Yes, Mosuoe,” said Sekadi, her voice suddenly thick.
“Why, do you think?”
“Mosuoe?” said Sekadi, still watching the big male. “Why do I try or why do I fail?”
“Either,” said Nemisa. “Or both. They are the same.”
Sekadi hated Mosuoe Nemisa when she was like this. It wasn’t often but when the mood struck her Nemisa could speak in the most infuriating riddles, totally opaque but whose solutions, once known, were embarrassingly obvious.
“I don’t know,” said Sekadi after a time.
“Battles are rarely won from a distance, Novice,” said Nemisa. “Go down to him.”
* * *
The novice dropped into a crouch before him on the opposite side of the little pool. He’d heard her approach, of course, just as he’d smelled her scent on the air and marked her as that same one who he’d almost killed the day before.
Her black tunic and leggings made the edges of her figure indistinct, like a shadow.
She carried a scimitar, fashioned in the style of Aganju the Maker, whose point she now dipped into the pool making small ripples. Her stance was a little loose, lacking the confidence of knowing her own center of gravity but he could tell she would have that knowledge soon.
Her face betrayed nothing, she’d learned that much, but her eyes danced with fires he knew all too well.
“Greetings,” he said when it became clear she would not speak first.
She still kept silent, watching him for a few more moments with predator’s eyes. Had she been older, he knew, or just a little more seasoned, his own hand would already have gripped the pommel of his sword.
“What are you doing here?” she said at last.
“At the moment?” said the big male. “I am talking to you.”
“You have dishonored me,” she said.
“The dishonor is mine, Novice,” he said.
“I’m going to kill you,” she said.
“You have tried three times, Novice,” said the big male.
“Those were tests,” she said, a little too quickly. “I had to see where your weaknesses lay.”
The big male said nothing for a time. He seemed to be fighting an urge to do something with the corners of his mouth. Then, “Had you not learned them during our first spar?” he said.
Sekadi had an urge then too. It had to do with plunging her blade into his throat. Though she still had no idea why, she resisted it.
“I needed more,” she managed finally.
“And now,” said the big male softly. “Do you know where I am weak?”
“You– “Sekadi knew she had to be careful not to reveal her intrusion into the Mosuoe’s cloister. “It is said that you were raised by humans, whom you chose one as a mate over one of the Orisha.”
“I have had two mates,” said the big male. “The first was of our kind.”
“And the other?”
“She was not,” he said.
“What happened to them?” said Sekadi.
She was sure she detected a shadow cross his face as the time stretched between them. He was so formidable to the eye and yet, when one got close, there were all his weaknesses exposed.
“The first died helping me seek revenge on my father,” said the big male with obvious difficulty. “And the other . . .”
He trailed off and Sekadi had the impression that he was struggling to hold something back, some large emotion perhaps.
“The other?” said Sekadi.
“The other was murdered by a coward,” he said.
“Not in battle?”
“Not really,” said the big male. “No.”
“That is not honorable,” said Sekadi.
“She lived a life of honor,” said the big male, defiant. “She was fierce in battle. She should not have died that way.”
“Do you think she will be accepted into the Hands of Olodumare?”
“I-” the big male stopped abruptly as if the words had suddenly grown too large for his throat. “I do not know.”
Sekadi said nothing else then, only made patterns in the water with the edge of her blade.
After a time, she left him, fading into the long shadows like blood seeping into a charnel field.
* * *
“He still lives,” said Mosuoe Nemisa.
Sekadi was on her perch, looking down on the temple, thinking. She was no more surprised to see Mosuoe Nemisa than she was that she hadn’t tracked her arrival.
“I could not do it, Mosuoe,” said Sekadi, not looking down.
“So, I see,” said Mosuoe Nemisa.
Sekadi watched as the big male, carrying a bedroll and a water skin, left the Pilgrim’s quarters. She marked each of his steps as he strode once again toward the pool.
“He’s not like us,” said Sekadi
“He is a great warrior,” said Mosuoe Nemisa.
“But he is not like us,” said Sekadi, still watching as he knelt beside the water. He drew his sword from its great black sheath, laid it across his knees and assumed the position of openness. “He carries the spirit of his dead mate with him.”
“Yes,” said Nemisa. “Yes, he does.”
“It would be dishonorable to kill him,” said Sekadi after a time.
“Indeed,” said Mosuoe Nemisa. “And why is that?”
“He uses all his strength to hold her,” said Sekadi. “He has nothing left.”
“So he is weak,” said Nemisa. Sekadi nodded. “And it is dishonorable to kill the weak.”
Again, Sekadi nodded. There was too much feeling in her for words just then, a condition easily noted by her master. Nemisa let her sit awhile and mull. Then,
“Mosuoe?” said Sekadi.
“Novice?”
“He is weak,” she began, her mouth having a hard time with the words. “Yet he bested me, nearly killed me.”
“That was only his body, novice,” said Nemisa. “Do you mark the difference?”
It was clear that she didn’t. Nemisa had expected as much. The final mystery was always hard for the young to grasp, especially when they were as gifted in the Arts as Sekadi.
She let the time tick between them and the child wrestle with her thoughts.
“Do you know why your father sent you to us, Sekadi?” said Nemisa eventually.
Sekadi remembered the conversation, how her father had ordered her to go, how she’d railed against him, and how, despite her railing, she had been trundled off to the distant monastery while her brothers and sister went off to fight.
“He wanted to protect me,” said Sekadi but the words were thick in her mouth, distasteful. She’d fought against the thought and mostly won even before coming here. Her father was weak, like this male. Her father, fearing the coming war, the war to which he’d happily consigned all of her siblings, had sent her off to this forgotten anachronism of a place to keep her from harm. She loved him but hated the weakness in him, the dishonor. If only she knew the place inside him where the weakness lay, then she would cut it out of him herself. Sekadi fought the tears of rage and despair that welled in her eyes. What in the hells did her father have to do with anything, anyway?
“Your father is an honorable warrior,” said Nemisa. “He wants you to be so as well.”
“I am,” said Sekadi.
“You are honorable, yes,” said Nemisa. “But not yet a warrior.”
Sekadi wanted to scream that she was a warrior, that none of her peers could match her despite her small size, that none but the masters and this newcomer had bested her despite her size, despite the inefficiency with the crescent blade her body forced upon her.
What she said was, “Why not?”
Nemisa’s smile at that was unusually warm, almost soft.
“There is more at our hearts than battle, novice,” she said and pointed to the big male, still kneeling, still hoping to find rest for his spirit, still failing. “He knows. He’s out of balance right now but he knows what is at our heart. Just as your father knows. Just as you may know one day.”
“Can you not just tell me, Mosuoe?” said Sekadi.
Nemisa shook her head. “No, Sekadi,” she said softly. “But I have confidence that you will learn the answer in time.”
“I hope I will make you proud, Mosuoe.”
“You will,” said Nemisa. “Or you will not be the warrior either I or your father hope.”
Sekadi said nothing. It was clear she didn’t know what her master was talking about. Not yet. Having no more words, the novice turned her face back to the distant warrior, on his knees, searching for and finding neither balance nor peace.
Nemisa left her there, threading her own way back through the familiar stones of the mountain down to the temple that had been her home for so long.
