SWORD AND SORCERESS XVI, page 12
He snatched it, eyes darting swiftly from word to word, trying to see them all at once. Yvarlin's throat closed convulsively as his expression fell from anticipation to disbelief, then down into despair. The scroll dropped from his trembling fingers and lay disregarded on the floor.
In a few terse sentences, Clan Citarha had adamantly forbidden Sallik to apply to the Priesthood, citing his religious birthright among the nimir more took precedence over any other calling.
Tears tracked down Sallik's pale cheeks. Yvarlin rose and walked around her desk to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You have the questionable honor of being held by two Goddesses, my Silent One," she said with soft compassion. "It seems Amaevith needs you more, as do your people. Use what you've learned here to become the great leader you were born to be, and I know you'll find peace."
Sallik shook off her hand and angrily wiped his sleeve across his face. He dodged past her and fled, a hard gust of air slamming the door behind him.
The priestess almost went after him, but stopped. He would need some time alone to assimilate the shock of the news. Air talents never stayed angry for long; emotional control was too deeply ingrained in their psyches. Despite that truth, Yvarlin wafted a gust of air under the discarded scroll, viciously shredded the parchment, and swept it out the window like a cloud of gnats.
The falling sun painted the white granite Sanctuary a radiant orange-gold and gilded Yvarlin's snowy feathers as she knelt before the altar. The tranquillity of the
open-air shrine was shattered by the angry echoes of her voice as she flung questions to the evening sky.
"How could You do this to him!" She pounded the marble altar with her fists, her fury lashing the wind into sharp whips of air. "To offer him the hopes of his heart and then let Your Sister snatch them away! You were the one who called him here!"
Her body bent forward until her forehead rested on her bruised hands. Tears wet the cold marble as she breathed words even closer to her heart. "I thought You took care of Your own. How can I serve You when You show such cruelty?" Her arms crossed over her knotted stomach as she curled into a tight ball of wings and misery. "How can You test my love for You so harshly?"
A warm hand of wind ran through Yvarlin's short hair, making her lift her tear-stained face from the floor. The many windchimes strung among the columns went still as palpable silence fell over the Sanctuary.
The delicate silver windbells hanging directly above the altar began to swing, playing an icicle melody in the vast quiet. The priestess' eyes went beyond the altar to the Reliquary, an exquisitely crafted chest of white granite and flawless rock crystal. Important Temple relics were housed within: books penned by the Founders, feathers from prominent avir priests, holy talismans, and a coiled length of white silk rope.
Yvarlin's focus narrowed until only the rope filled her consciousness. Her heart drummed in her ears, filling the uncanny silence with its thunder. Feeling strangely detached from her own actions, she rose slowly and rounded the altar, drawing a silver key from the pocket of her robe.
The night wind had risen until the simple act of walking was a muscle-straining chore. Against her training, Yvarlin recklessly diverted the wind away from Sallik and herself as they crept through the dark to the Promontory.
The priestess had expected questions from Sallik when
she had shaken him awake an hour earlier. He had blinked only once at her standing at his bedside with the ritual rope in her hands before throwing off his covers and donning his robe. Silent as a windless winter morning, they had slipped through the dark halls of the dormitory and out to the barren cliffs where Priesthood candidates had been Tested for time out of mind.
Ordinarily, the Trial of Air would begin the previous twilight with fasting and meditation. At sunrise, every student and teacher in the Temple would gather in the Sanctuary to offer prayers and hymns to the Windlady. The postulate and his Initiator would then undergo elaborate blessings and ritual cleansings. The day's celebrations would culminate at sunfall where Sallik and Yvarlin now stood, on the cliffs overlooking the rocky valley of Yris' Mirror far below.
Yvarlin smiled grimly. This postulate's Trial would occur at the deepest hour of night, unwitnessed except for an Initiator who was breaking every oath she had ever sworn to Test him.
Sallik watched Yvarlin uncoil the rope, the whites of his eyes showing like a skittish horse. His hands asked, Are you sure you want to do this? You know the cost of failure.
The priestess' mouth went dry at the reminder. A Tribunal of priests would invoke a curse to strip Yvarlin of her powers, and her wings would be brutally broken before she was flung into the chasm to die. Or they would give her to the nimir, and the Gods alone knew how they would extract retribution.
Yvarlin cleared her throat and said, "It doesn't matter. I'd rather die than live with broken faith." Somewhere among her roiling emotions she found humor enough for a wry smile. "Besides, I think the Gods would be disappointed if we didn't force Their hands occasionally. But are you still sure you want to do this? It's not too late to stop."
Sallik nodded calmly, but the priestess could see him trembling. Impulsively, she pulled him into a tight hug,
and he squeezed her ribs until she gasped. They stood that way, drawing strength from each other, until Yvarlin remembered herself and pushed him firmly away.
The priestess wound the rope around his body, binding him securely from neck to ankles. After tying the final knot, she turned him by the shoulders to face the precipice before him. His frightened gasp almost made her halt the rite, but she hardened her heart and placed the ritual kiss on his cheek.
Raising her hands to the overcast sky, Yvarlin intoned a soulfelt prayer: "Lady of the Winds, Your child stands before You on the edge between Death and Life." She barked a harsh laugh tinged with hysteria. "Your children stand before you on the edge between Death and Life. We lay our souls at Your feet in total trust. I pray You accept us and fill us with the breath of Your love."
Sallik's chest heaved rapidly, sweat trickling down his face despite the night's chill. He turned his head to give his mentor a long look filled with a mixture of fear, elation, and gratitude, then forsook his safe rock perch and fell toward his fate.
During the day, the gathered crowd would be able to watch the postulate's descent. Yvarlin strained to see Sallik, but the darkness swallowed him the instant he left the cliff. Instead, her mind's eye provided her with a vivid picture of his body scattered in red fragments on the rock teeth below. The strength drained from her legs as the ruthless truth seared her soul; if her intuition proved false, she had just sent a beautiful, trusting boy to his death. Her control over the wind slipped, and relentless fists of air buffeted her like an autumn leaf as she slumped to the ground and buried her face in her hands.
Over and over, she sent the litany to the wind: "I lay my soul at Your feet in total trust. I lay my soul at Your feet in total trust."
The gales around the cliffs died abruptly. Yvarlin's head snapped up to discover the clouds had vanished and the world was drenched in silver radiance. The night
seemed to hold its breath with anticipation, but of success or failure, Yvarlin couldn't guess. Then, like a brilliant incarnation of living moonlight, a blazing-white swan shot skyward with a great rush of his powerful wings.
Tears of gratitude blurred the priestess' view of Sallik's flight. "Oh, my Goddess," she breathed, "forgive me for doubting You." Far above her, Sallik wheeled like a falcon and folded his wings tight to his sleek body, executing a spectacular power dive before pulling up at the last possible instant to shoot effortlessly into the night sky. The wind of his passage dried his teacher's tears and made her laugh out loud.
The avir leaped to her feet. Two long steps carried her over the cliff and she threw her wings wide to catch the sky. Elated, she joined her student in thanking their Goddess with a dazzling display of aerial joy.
Yvarlin and Sallik stood in the courtyard of the main Temple complex, where a group of white-haired, black-eyed men and women waited patiently to escort their clanmember home.
Sallik's decision to return to his clan had surprised Yvarlin. The Yris Rune in his palm entitled him by Divine Providence to remain at the Temple as a full Initiate. His clan could not dispute the physical evidence of the Windlady's favor. He could continue his education and become a teacher himself, if he wished.
When Yvarlin had asked his reasons, he had explained that during his Test, the Breath of Yris had caught him in mid-fall, unwinding the ritual ropes with spectral fingers of Air. This was the normal order of the Trial, but Sallik had found himself shifted to his nimir form without having caused the change himself. He believed in his heart that Yris had reminded him of his true self and the destiny he had been born to fulfill.
Sallik had not only accepted his destiny, but he had resolved to shape it for the benefit of himself and those like him. He would be the wind of change to his people,
teaching kindness and compassion and freedom of will so no nimir—tayec or otherwise—would ever again be forced into a life he or she did not want.
The priestess in Yvarlin had wanted to argue, claiming that the Goddess Rune indicated that Yris wanted Sallik for Her own. In the end, she had held her peace out of respect for his courageous decision. She was tremendously proud of him.
The two turned to face each other, no longer student and teacher, but priest and priestess. Yvarlin took his hands in hers and said, "I'll miss you terribly, but I know you'll be well." She turned his left palm up and traced the white Eye newly tattooed there. "You will always have somewhere to go, if you have need."
Sallik smiled gratefully despite the threat of tears in his eyes. He abandoned decorum and flung his arms around Yvarlin's neck.
The avir affectionately wrapped arms and wings around him and whispered, "Be strong and true, my Silent Breeze. Yris hold you always."
A flock of magnificent swans took wing, filling the courtyard with the wild wind of their passage. Yvarlin followed their flight until they vanished in the sky. Head high, heart light, she turned and walked smiling into the Temple, where a Tribunal of senior priests waited to discipline her and issue her penance.
MOONLIGHT ON WATER
Carol E. Leever
Carol Leever currently works as a high school English teacher in California. I'd rather teach sixth grade; at that age they're housebroken, but they still want to learn. In college some of them get a little of the conceit knocked out of them. And by the time they're thirty they're positively human by contrast. She also owns up to being an avid reader, martial artist, and amateur—very amateur—musician. She sold her first story to MZB's Fantasy Magazine, and is delighted to have made her way into an anthology. She likes to pretend she understands both science and philosophy, but suspects that her three cats ate the secrets of the universe for breakfast one morning and have been snickering at her ever since. (So that's what happened to my Rice Krispies.)
When I first read this story my initial comment was— scribbled on the cover sheet—"too nailed down in time and space." But then I reread it and reconsidered—something I very rarely do. Make that "almost never." Few things annoy me more than having somebody return a rejected story, begging me to reconsider. (Believe it or not, some sophomoric types still do it. A word to the wise: DON'T!)
The goddess Ameratsu's golden light shone out across the heavens as the rising sun heralded a new day. The warm light brightened the woodland clearing where Neko danced slowly and gracefully through her martial arts kata beneath the colorful falling of early autumn leaves. Around her sprawled her teachers—twenty-nine golden temple cats. They lounged in the autumn foliage, some rolling in the colored leaves; others stretched amid
the flowered branches of a pink crepe myrtle tree. Their slanted green eyes watched Neko's every move, the twitch of their tails displaying their pleasure or displeasure with each strike or kick in the kata. But despite their intent feline stares, it was the absent cat—the thirtieth—that most distracted Neko. The thirtieth cat had gone to summon two of her other teachers, two other members of the sacred kami, gods of the woodlands.
Who would it be, Neko wondered as she turned swiftly to deliver a high spinning kick to an imaginary opponent. One of the white cranes who taught her moves of grace and delicate beauty? One of the mischievous foxes who taught her the devilish craftiness of all the kitsune?
She dropped into a low stance as she struck a series of blindingly swift blows to the side, her bare feet sinking deep into the moss-covered earth. Each member of the kami had their individual lessons to teach, but lately they had begun speaking in tandem, offering her strange cryptic words that she was supposed to translate into some infinite knowledge. She wondered sometimes if the samurai of the noble houses learned in such a fashion, or if this was a torture reserved by the kami solely for her.
She heard them approaching before her kata ended, heard the soft tinkling music of crystals and the whisper of silk. She caught their scent in the wind—the mingling of spices and cherry blossoms—and she smiled. To her, the kami always smelled of springtime, even in the dread dark of winter.
Mindful that her teachers could not abide distraction of any type during a kata, Neko continued her dance. She finished out the martial arts form, her hands moving with flowing grace delivering deadly punches even as her body spun and twisted through the long, silent pattern. And when at last the form ended, she bowed respectfully to her teachers, her long dark braid falling across one of her silk-clad shoulders.
She looked up then, her own cat-green eyes flashing eagerly at her teachers for some sign of approval. Her
kata had not been precisely perfect—she'd slipped slightly on the second movement, had stretched too far on the twelfth. But she believed she was improving, never mind the fact that the cats kept telling her that she was still thinking far too much. If she didn't think about each individual movement, how was she supposed to perfect them?
The sprawling temple cats blinked at her as the three newcomers stepped out of the shadows and into the sunlit clearing. Red-and-gold autumn leaves fluttered in the air around the tall humanoid shapes clad in shimmering white kimonos. The three kami wore crystals around their necks, carried flutes instead of swords, and possessed a glowing aura that mingled with dawn's radiance, but it was their animal faces that set them utterly apart from humans. Neko smiled at them—a cat, a dragon, and a fox.
It was the dragon who spoke at last, his long trailing whiskers twitching from his scaled snout as his multifaceted eyes gleamed with a deep power. "Tsuzuki noko-koro," he intoned mysteriously. Then he turned, and with a rustle of white silk, disappeared back into the shadows of the woods.
Baffled, Neko stared after him, her eyes widening with bewilderment and irritation. "Mind like the moon reflecting on the water?" she demanded of the fox and the cat still watching her. "That's it? That's my lesson? What's that supposed to mean?"
The fox giggled, his furry ears swiveling even as his long fluffy tail shifted the silk of his kimono. "Poor little Feline," he crooned, speaking the use-name the kami had given Neko. "Is it truly so terrible?"
Neko sighed, blushing under his amusement. "I don't understand, Kitsune-san," she complained. "Mind like the moon reflecting on the water? What moon? What water?"
"If you understood the lesson, then there would be no need to teach it," the fox laughed before he, too,
turned and followed the dragon into the cool shadows of the forest.
"Wait . . ." Neko called in protest. The cat, however, folded her arms, blocking Neko's pursuit of the fox. "Your kata, little Feline," the cat commanded, green eyes gleaming brightly. "Begin again."
Frowning in confusion, Neko bowed to the kami. She stepped back into the center of the woodland clearing, fully aware that thirty discerning cats now watched her every move. She began her kata again, but her mind was distracted, her head filled with so many questions she could not concentrate. Moon on water? What could it mean, what did they expect her to learn from so cryptic a sentence?
She put extra effort into her form, working out her frustration in each kick and punch, changing the kata from something graceful and serene into a swift dance that better suited her mood. Maybe if she tried harder, kicked higher, spun faster? She was only halfway through the form when she heard all thirty of the cats huff in annoyance, fluffing their golden tails in irritation before they, too, vanished into the forest, leaving her alone in the clearing.
Neko broke her pattern and dropped resignedly down onto the blanket of golden leaves coating the forest floor.
"You think too much," a voice called from the woodlands, the voice of one of the cats filled with irritation and reproach.
"I'm trying!" she called back, wondering if she'd get any points for effort.
"Think on this, little Feline," the voice echoed softly, fading away as the cat left her alone in the woods. "When does a baby learn to walk? When she's trying, or when she ceases trying and just does it?"
