The Shadow of the Blade

by R. R. King

  I tell the King about Lucian’s Third Law. He is familiar with it. The quote is:

  A magic, or law, exerted on an opponent demands an equal reaction in response and magnitude. However, there is no evidence that reactions have to be opposing and directed to ‘he who drew first.’ The Seasons demand balance in every way, but do not demand justice in particular.

  “Again, complicated but true,” King Thorn says. “I can myself confirm the Third Law’s authenticity from my experience in the battlefield. Life is a great paradox, a surprising one at times. You can train all you want for a fight and lose due to the faintest and unexpected circumstances. Even when your opponent is forced to draw first. However, I must disagree with Lucian’s part about the balance in the world,” the King notes. “I don’t think the universe demands balance, at least not in the Seven Seasons. I see the universe as random and messed up, giving only way to the cunning and calculated — and sometime lucky ones.”

  “I disagree,” I say. “But I’d rather continue my story about the night of preparation.”

  “Ah,” he says. “The night you decided you needed to secure your win by doing what exactly?”

  I hesitate for a moment then say, “Doing what I have learned as an orphan by mother years ago.”

  18

  Well of Willows

  That night, I remembered my mother locking me up in the bottom of a tower for seven days. A tower with an opening in the ceiling. The ceiling seemed so far away. The opening looked like an eye to the sky. The sky rarely showed a star or bird, for the opening was too narrow to catch one. Still, I could tell night from day.

  The opening was my only hope against suicide at the bottom of the well.

  I wouldn't blame you if Ellianna’s tower came to mind. In many ways, we were alike, except that I wasn’t blind. I was blessed with light in my eyes.

  My tower had been a well in the past. One that Lurkers used to drink from. One with a peculiar history I learned about years later.

  I spent my childhood in that well. They called it the Well of Willows. There was no way out. Even if I had sought one, I’d have been killed without mercy. My mother had the well guarded by a beast. It circled the perimeter night and day.

  Shei’tuh’rah was the beast’s name. A huge snake-like reptile that killed by slithering through any of a man’s openings then ate him from inside out. It lived in the sand and above ground. I was imprisoned for childhood.

  It was a small beast though. Not like Dragowrath or a Gorlove. Still, its cruel and inhumane killing methods stopped me from contemplating an escape.

  A Lurker should be capable of surviving a week without water, my mother had taught me. She wanted to strengthen my tolerance for thirst. Test my patience. Raise a warrior, not just a man.

  Some people said six days were guaranteed for survival. The seventh had always been debatable. All in all, I was blessed with being abnormally capable of tolerating thirst. To a limit, of course.

  One other reason why I never tried to escape was my trust in my mother’s love for me. I was sure that sooner or later she would pull me out, that there was some wisdom behind her doing.

  That she had a reason I’d understand when I am older.

  I spent the seven days noticing my shadow on the circular walls. When the sun was up, I would twist to the left and the right, stand on my hands or curl my body. In some instances I chased it, but soon I understood how stupid I was. For a boy named Shadow, I was fascinated with my own. I was fascinated by the fact that I could never catch it. That it manipulated my perception. That it took my form but wasn’t me. It was just different.

  If I twisted my fingers and hands in certain ways, part of my shadow would look like a chicken or an Elyphant. With the right adjustment it looked much smaller than I really was. Sometimes bigger. That’s when I realized what a shadow was. What I was.

  A shadow was a matter of perception. It was circumstantial. Never confined to one form or length. It was also neglected at times, lazily waving upon a wall behind a man’s existence. It was formless, taking shapes of boxes and disappearing into holes in the ground. Sometimes scary, sometimes fun. The craziest thing about shadows was that it was always there. Is always there.

  You could argue that it disappeared when the sun was straight up, or at noon, but trust me, it’s always there.

  Shadows were rebels, outlaws to society. A shadow answered to no one but paid its dues to light. Only light. Whether from fire or sun or a midnight moon. Funny how the darkness of a shadow was born from the womb of light.

  I loved the shadow. I loved myself. You couldn’t catch it but it was real. It belonged to me. Without me, it wouldn’t exist.

  What would you call a shadow’s shadow?

  However fascinating, it had one utter weakness: the Dark. Why did my shadow escape when it was dark?

  Only when it was dark, I began to worry about the Shei’tuh’rah crawling back into the hole, trying to kill me.

  In the sunlight, I would see if it decided to crawl inside. But in the dark… well… I was helpless. So was my shadow, because it seemed to die in the absence of light — though I knew it was always there somehow, unseen but present.

  This was the first time I realized that a man’s shadow is relatively on the good side. The dark was evil; the shadow couldn’t stand it, but it blossomed and danced in the sunlight.

  In the midst of the seventh day, my mother pulled me out. She didn’t say a word. I was thirsty. There was a table next to her with glass half-full with water. I didn’t even think twice and ran for it.

  “Shadow,” my mother called. I stopped before the table. “Only a warrior who broadens his vision, wins the fight.”

  I was too young to understand, or even have such patience. I still reached for the glass of water, but she stopped me again, repeating her words. “Only a warrior who broadens his vision, wins the fight.”

  Frustrated, I looked up from the glass, just to satisfy her so she would permit me drinking the water.

  In that moment, I realized there was another well nearby, right behind her. It wasn’t close though. About a hundred strides away.

  I ran to it. My mother didn’t stop me.

  I drank so much I thought I would grow fat like older men in our village, who did nothing but complain about the unfairness of life. Then lying on my back, I actually vomited some of the water out. I had drank to excess. Moments later, I retired back to my mother and asked her what this was all about.

  “I told you to look away from the glass,” she said. “and that’s when you saw the well.”

  “That wasn’t exactly telling me,” I protested. “Besides, you could have let me drink the water in the glass first, anyways.”

  “Really?” she pulled the glass up and made me look it. It was dirty water, yellow like pee, and filled with very small worms.

  “Oh,” I learned my lesson. “Worms.” I said, irritated.

  “No, not worms,” she said. “Those are baby Shei’tuh’rahs.”

  She took me back to the well again, so I’d continue learning the ways of a warrior. The well had only been a lesson. One of many. I wasn’t ready to leave it yet.

  19

  Lucian de Lore

  On preparation night, I knew my mother’s lesson would help me defeat Rodmordt. In reality, this wasn’t a feud about swords and tactics. It wasn’t even about music and the Magic of Elevation. Not quite exactly about who draws first. It was about patience. About noticing of the things outside the frame of my vision and comprehension.

  To reach that level of perception I had to revisit a study of rituals in one of my mother’s favorite books.

  I spent the night reading The Quest for Light is a Journey into Darkness by Lucian de Lore. I should have read through it earlier, but I guess it was my ego that stopped me from doing it. The book was long and winding and mostly confusing. Only there was one suggestion in its latter chapters. An unusual way to open the mind’s eye for a better perception.


  I read it, understood it, and knew what I needed to do next.

  Closing the book, I stood up and stepped outside, walked in the heavy rain and dug a grave for myself.

  20

  Grave of Gravity

  “You dug your own grave?” King Thorn says.

  I answer him:

  A warrior with enough wisdom would dig his own grave nearby his sleeping bed, to remember, to contemplate, to reflect and to strengthen his faith.

  “From Lucian’s book,” King Thorn says. “Even though a Lurker, I’ve always admired his books.”

  King Thorn still surprises me. A well-read King is a devious one. A devious King is somewhat egoless. Egoless warriors tend to win wars, for they see things the way they are, not the way their egos sees them.

  “You’re such a mystery, Shadow,” King Thorn sighs. “Half of your words seem like utter lies. Half of the half are utter lies. Half of the half of the half are fast-paced with no room for comprehension or reflection. Half of those are stories you could have spared but insist on telling, as they deduce from the meaning and the rhythm of storytelling. Even half of those are complicated theories like this Elevation thing, which I truly do not comprehend. Listening to you is a pleasure. Fully understanding is a pain.”

  “A book’s true joy is the second read around,” I argue. “A good book, I suppose.”

  “So if you tell me the story all over again, I will truly grasp it?”

  “If I tell you the story again, it will not be the same.”

  “True. It will probably verge on the edge of lying.”

  “That’s if my original isn’t a lie in the first place.” I am mocking him, subtly.

  He laughs. It’s half a laugh, to be precise. A laugh he killed halfway to save grace and not look vulnerable to my sarcastic comment.

  “Does a lie of a lie become truth?” He says in his testing voice. He knows what he is doing. It’s like twisting an arm. Twist a little and the twisted victim holds his breath against exposing his secrets. Twist again and he might tell the truth. Only be sure you don’t twist hard enough or the twisted will die and you will never know his secrets. King Thorn is twisting the words.

  “A lie of a lie is a lie,” the syllables of the words I speak are without emotion. Ah - lie - of - a - lie – is - a - lie. Each syllable is almost the same length. The same pitch. The same rhythm. The same color.

  A lie must be told in monotone so the listener can’t read between the lines from the Book of a Million Pieces by the Honest Whore of the Season of Sin.

  “A lie of a lie is an even better lie,” he doesn’t stop challenging me. What is he implying? “If I tell you I’ve fought a whale in the sea this morning and won, that’s a lie. If I perfect it into a better lie where I tell you the name of whale, how I felt killing it, and add a side character to the story. I believe I’ve explained this earlier.”

  “So a lie of a lie is storytelling?”

  “Fiction,” he says. A short answer.

  Talk slow, talk low, and say too little. Your opponents will be forced to fill in the rest from the Game of Games by the Matador of Myths.

  “You asked for details,” I say. My voice is out of touch. He has me under his spell. I need to return to my story. My safe and calculated sentences. I can’t lose my focus. “I am telling you all I can. I could have just skipped to the end and told you how I killed Rodmordt.”

  “Hmm…” he says.

  And though I can’t see the smirk on his face, I can now hear it in his voice. That little shiver, ever so slight in tone. That laugh, not with lips, or eyes, but with subtle change in the pitch of his voice. Things I have learned from playing the Harp.

  A sad Harpist would string a note into misery, while a happy one would string the same notes into mirth. A debatable theory, but one that ‘rings’ true from the Book of Music, Monsters, and Mankind by Various Artists.

  In truth, I am not sure I know why the King wants to hear the stories. The King is aloof and keen on playing with words. Or am I paranoid, reading too much into his actions?

  A deep breath calms me down and buries the words I am about to confess back into the deep well of my gut. Which reminds me that I don’t often confess my secrets to myself. A secret is no secret if a Keeper of Secrets remembers it often.

  A secret is a corpse dug in a grave. It’s not wise to visit it too often to make sure it’s still buried. Doing so will the result in the corpse’s resurrection. A secret should fray and melt and wither with time. It should fade into black so much that one day it becomes hidden, even from yourself from Conjured Lies, Concealed Truths by Ah’bay’cay’dah the First.

  The King does not say more. I interrupt the trouble of silence with telling the rest of my story.

  21

  Meditate the Madness

  In my grave, I closed my eyes.

  Following the instructions from The Quest for Light is a Journey into Darkness by Lucian de Lore, I let go of every misleading thought, every feeling of attachment to this life, and every negative belief. I imagined myself a winner. I imagined having already killed Rodmordt — and the rest of the The Six Giants. I felt the shiver of excitement of victory in every pore in my body and embraced it. It nourished the soul and enlightened the essence of a warrior. The science behind it was that inside a man’s own grave, and with enough practice for imaginations, the brain would melt into a temporary state where it would not differentiate fact from fiction. And since the brain is analytical in nature — Lucian’s Fourth Rule — it prefers to think of the illusion as a fact.

  Let me repeat this: sometimes the brain’s only choice is to think of an illusion as a fact.

  Practices like this eluded many men and compromised their sanity, but I had been taught by the one and only mother herself.

  A rooted feeling of relief breezed through my body, so relaxing I was about to fall asleep. But I had been trained to resist it.

  I embraced the feeling and thought of our mundane world, the unnecessary wars and feuds, and how I would have preferred to care for a horde of sheep and squeezed a cow’s milk in a farm and raised my children with a woman I loved, far away from the Seven Seasons.

  The thought of the woman I loved brought tears to my eyes. Not a good thing when I was in such a state of meditation. But I couldn’t help it. Remembering the only woman I had ever loved broke my heart into splinters and shards of transparent and fragile glass all over the universe. Glass that gave birth to stars. Glittering ones. All the moons and suns and planets could not compensate my loss in any way. I didn’t want my lover’s memory to haunt me again, as I had practiced the Art of Distraction on a daily basis to forget about her — I knew I could never really forget about her, but it was a sort of drug-induced therapy, It helped me pretend I forgot about her.

  Be cautious of gifting a man with a woman he would love, for if he lost her you would have ripped apart the layers of his heart and soul, leaving him bare to the beast he was meant to be before meeting her from Rules of Attraction & Emotions Beyond Reason or Doubt in Seven Seasons by Maiden Elora Adelstein.

  I snapped out of my grave, my eyes wide open, but unable to see clearly. The tears — and the pouring rain — blurred my vision and left me lost and undone. My love had long been taken from me.

  “I will kill you, Alagor Rodmordt,” I promised, if not to the emptiness of my grave or the falling rain, then to myself.

  22

  Kha’me’rah & Vom

  “This woman of yours, do you want to talk about her?” King Thorn wonders. His words were cold. Blunt. Asking about my lover is an act of pure curiosity, not an attempt to hear about affection and the matters of the heart. I have to remind myself that he is King of the Season of Snow, the coldest and richest of all Seasons, and the one ruling all else.

  I say nothing. He understands. I appreciate it.

  A warrior's true pain shouldn't be talked about leisurely. A warrior kills his pain before killing his enemy. A warrior should not have love and lost
from Matters of the Heart and Soul by J. R. Reese.

  “My sympathies,” King Thorn says. He doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t care. I see it in his voice. It’s etiquette. Like cleaning one’s mouth on a table full of stranger guests. It’s not cleaning. It’s pretending. “Nothing pains a man more than the loss of love.”

  I haven’t exactly stated I have lost my woman, nor have I denied it. But it’s human nature to assume you’ve lost the love when it hurts. Why can’t love just hurt and still be love? Why can’t pain be pleasure?

  “‘Pain is an illusion…’” I say.

  “Induced by the reality of another illusion,” he is starting to bore me. “from the Book of Seasonal Fears. Chapter twelve: The Pain that Wasn’t Even There by Abbas El Magnoon.”

  I am tempted to open my mouth in wonder. I haven’t heard about this book. Never have I met a King who has read more than I have. His knowledge starts to unsettle me. I am not supposed to admire a man hated by my people. A King with a reputation for killing those who are just a mere threat to him. A King who starved the Village of Feluria for seven days, not quenching their thirst until they died, and then ordered his soldiers to quench their thirst with the villagers’ blood.

  The less a warrior knows about his enemy, the easier the kill, for knowledge induces intimacy, and intimacy entails peace, and peace is not the desired outcome of war from Rules of War by Lucian.

  Of course, I don’t quote this part out loud. I say, “Well quoted.”

  “Though I do practice meditation, my wife does. I’m afraid it has undesired consequences when you wake yourself from it so abruptly.”