The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “You only say that because you don’t think you can do it, yourself,” said Balnshik.

  “Of course I can do it, if it can be done. But this is all make-believe. Baby games. Thinking about a color, or saying a word over and over again. Stupid!”

  “What is stupid?” said a voice from behind him, and Gard turned and saw Duke Silverpoint.

  “Master Icicle has decided that Prince Firebow is a charlatan and a liar,” said Balnshik.

  “Has he, now? Why?”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Gard hastily. “I just said that, er, meditation is stupid. And it doesn’t belong in this book.”

  “You think so, do you?” Silverpoint came around the table and faced Gard. “You oblige me to defend the memory of my old teacher. Rise to your feet, please.”

  “I didn’t know he was your teacher,” said Gard, but he rose in instant obedience. “I’m sorry.”

  “Please seat yourself on the floor,” said Silverpoint. “Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes,” said Gard, looking up uncertainly. Silverpoint drew a long knife and, leaning down, set its point between Gard’s eyes.

  “Very good. Be so good as to begin the First Breathing Exercise, as described in chapter six. I have no doubt you recall it with perfect clarity.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gard closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and held it a certain number of heartbeats before he let it out. Then he repeated the process. Then he did it again and continued as he wondered resentfully why so much importance was accorded to a vain and useless pastime.

  He decided to hold an image in his mind, as The Perfect Warrior recommended. A star? A flower, opening its petals? A cloud? What possible use was an exercise like this, after all? It could only numb his mind with boredom. If this sort of thing wasn’t a fraud, then surely poor Ranwyr, who had worked at it so diligently, who believed, would have gained powers enough to open a door through the mountains.

  Gard saw again, so clearly, the valley where he had been born, the blue mountains ringing it round implacably. He felt the warmth of its earth under his bare feet. He tasted again the water of the dark stream, and the bitterness of green melons … they had been gathering green melons when the Rider had caught Ran.

  He felt the spear in his hand, as he killed the Rider. Its mount stood before him. He knew, now, that it was called a stag. He cut away the cruel harness.

  The night was dark. The stag was all he could see, glimmering under the stars. It looked calmly into his face, then turned and walked away from him. It looked once over its shoulder, as though to bid him follow, and so he followed it.

  Its hoofprints filled with water, star-reflecting, easy to follow even through the dark wood. The green smell breathed out at Gard. He had forgotten the smell of woods. These were woods in spring. He could smell the little white flowers that had starred the dancing green. He had forgotten their scent too, but then it had been long years since they had bloomed anywhere….

  Dancers were on the green. He could hear the drumbeats. He could see their black shadows, now, under the stars. The stag walked straight through the dance and no one looked at Gard as he followed, for which he was grateful.

  There at the edge, in the blossoming grove, Ran was just sitting down with a woman. But the woman was not Teliva, and as Gard stared, he saw that the man was not Ran, either. He did not know who they were. The woman was fair, with skin like the blossoms under the starlight, but she was a big-boned wench and he thought her face rather vacant. He walked past them impatiently, wondering where the stag was leading him.

  It seemed to be proceeding up a trail between two steep high walls. They shone like the light of the moon, and at first Gard thought they were the ice walls under the mountains, where he had tried to climb and fallen. As he drew close, however, he could see that they were insubstantial. They were only a mist of starlight. The stag began to climb up through the starlight, and Gard strained to follow it and knew the only way to follow in such a place was to leave his heavy legs behind. He slipped free of them—of all his heaviness—and looked down at his poor limited body in surprise. How clumsy, how stupid he looked.

  And how bright was the world around him, when he was not obliged to view it through a feeble lens set in a watery ball! True, he had lost any sensation of touch, he had lost the scent of springtime; but he saw perfectly, in all directions at once, and distance did not dim his perception. He saw that the bright void was filled with clouds of light in varied colors. They flew, they sped or lingered, and it could not be said they moved up or down, for neither of those concepts existed. Now and again they collided, and thunder roared out in the void and something like fire sprayed out.

  It was familiar. When had he been here before?

  Some other familiar thing pulled at his perception. It was a sound, an insistent call. He looked for its source and saw, far away, a darkness. By an act of will he crossed the distance without needing to travel, and saw … unbearable shadow and heaviness, crushing solidity, and yet shifting lights were trapped within it. One of the lights was calling him. It was a cloud of blue-violet. Its voice was beautiful.

  Gard sent himself within the darkness without concern, for he knew he could always come out again. He was not bound to it, after all …

  He opened his eyes with a start. He felt keenly the cold, and the pain of his stiff body. He put his hands up, trying to tear away the blinkers that limited his vision to a narrow pair of tunnels straight before him.

  “No, no,” said a gentle amused voice, as someone caught his wrists with a grip like steel. “You need those eyelids.”

  He scrambled to his feet and stared at Balnshik, at Duke Silverpoint.

  Silverpoint was nodding. “Very good. Perhaps, now, you would be willing to admit that Prince Firebow was not entirely a fool?”

  “… Yes, sir,” said Gard dazedly.

  “He walked without flesh,” said Balnshik. “The lost child caught a glimpse of his home, I think. Are you all right, my dear?”

  Gard nodded his head. He felt somehow bigger, in a way he could not put into words. He felt wonder, and shame. More than anything he felt regret at the unfairness of it all: that he should learn, without any effort, what had been so difficult for Ranwyr.

  “Here’s our little pale scholar!” jeered Fraitsha, when Gard returned to the Training Hall. “Had a nice time ruining the sight of your eyes over a heap of books?”

  “He did not,” said Duke Silverpoint. “Put him through Ketta’s Fourth Assault, if you please.”

  “Right.” Fraitsha took down a mace, a spear, an ax, and a sword. He hefted them each, in his four hands, then leaped before Gard, swaying from side to side. “Come at me, Icicle.”

  Gard, armed with a spear and the two swords on his back, circled Fraitsha warily. Gard rotated the spear before him, trying to advance behind its wheel. Three or four other fighters entered the hall at that moment. He ignored them. Fraitsha thrust out with his spear and spoked the wheel, following swiftly with his mace to send Gard’s spear flying into a corner of the hall, useless as a broomstraw. Gard retreated and drew his swords, but not before the ax whirred down and struck him lightly on the top of his head. It hurt.

  “I have cloven your skull,” Fraitsha announced. “Now I would sit and enjoy feasting on your brains. Clearly, reading did not fill them with anything that would stick in my teeth.”

  The other fighters laughed and applauded. They were onetimers, the elite, and Quickfire was among them. “Go and fetch your spear and begin again,” said Silverpoint.

  Gard felt irritation as he obeyed, embarrassment and discomfort; yet all these were somehow wrong. The emotions seemed like an outgrown garment, a note of music played off-key. Having retrieved the spear, he returned to his place and regarded grinning Fraitsha. Gard focused …

  And time slowed. Gard saw himself as from outside, and Fraitsha as from behind; saw the deep red light pulsing through Fraitsha that was his real form, trapped in the four-armed flesh. He saw
Duke Silverpoint, in whom a clear straight flame burned, and Quickfire burned indeed with high fleering bravado. The other fighters were likewise abstractions, points of colored light or pulsing animal forms.

  Gard saw the way to defeat Fraitsha. It was simply a matter of being here, and here and here in this precise order, and at this particular speed. No more difficult than the old red-red-yellow game with the spear, the same principle in fact. He needed only to concentrate himself …

  And it was done.

  Fraitsha stood, blinking in amazement at his weapons, which were scattered before him on the floor. Gard stood behind him, an edged blade pressed to either side of Fraitsha’s throat. There was a moment’s shocked silence, before Silverpoint collected himself enough to say, “Fraitsha is beheaded.”

  A roar of applause followed his quiet words, as the elite fighters stormed forward.

  “Give me a round with that demon,” shouted one named Chint. He was wide and powerful and came of the same desert people as Magister Tagletsit. “How are you with the long blade, son of desolation?”

  “He can fight with either hand,” said Quickfire. “Take care.”

  Fraitsha was stepping to the side, looking from Gard to Duke Silverpoint. “What have you done?” Fraitsha said to Silverpoint, but quietly.

  “Why, forged a more perfect weapon,” said Silverpoint, with a thin smile. “Was I not commanded so, by our lords and masters? And so I have. Gard, you may fight a round with Chint. Long blades.”

  Gard himself had been standing motionless all this while, no less surprised than Fraitsha. He turned to the other fighters, still with the sense of regarding them from some point near the ceiling of the hall. He drew a long blade from the racks and faced off against Chint.

  Chint was right-handed. Chint was of a certain height, and a certain width across the shoulders, and his arms of a certain length, and now he was leading with the Shrattin Posture of Attack Number Seven, and so … defeating him was a matter of these moves …

  Gard heard the blades ringing, rather than saw them strike, and then he was inside Chint’s reach with the point of his blade at Chint’s throat.

  “To Gard,” said Silverpoint unnecessarily. Another silence, but no cheering this time, and then the fighters all began speaking at once.

  “I see how he did it.”

  “Let me in there, I want to try that.”

  “Chint, where are your eyes? That’s an old trick!”

  Chint, still staring into Gard’s face, slowly shook his head. Carefully Chint lowered his blade and stepped back. “Lord protect me. I would rather not fight you again, whatever you are.”

  He put his blade on the rack and walked away. Gard watched him go, a little confused.

  “Silverpoint!” Vergoin stepped forward. He was tall, and arrogant; the rumor was he was one of the mages’ own offspring, relegated to slave status some three or four civil wars back. “He and I, blade and net. This creature thinks we’re brawlers like his idiot kinsmen, doesn’t he?”

  Silverpoint shrugged. “Blade and net, Gard. If you please.”

  Wondering, Gard went to the rack and drew the short blade and dragged a net from the barrel provided. The net was not large, but it was weighted, sewn with fluttering stuff to distract the eye. Vergoin drew another net from the barrel, not bothering to speak to Gard.

  The work was all done with the net; the blade was merely for scoring the point once the net had fallen and snared one’s opponent. Gard went to the center of the floor, turned to Vergoin, and saluted; Vergoin did not salute, but swung the net and brought it down in a high lazy arc.

  Gard observed, detached, without anger. He saw himself dodging from under the net; he saw his own net floating up, with no conscious effort on his part, falling over Vergoin’s head. It was the same maneuver he had used a hundred times against the Riders. The moment was one with all those other moments.

  Now, as then, he dropped and dragged his opponent down … not from the back of a mount, but to the floor of the exercise hall. It took a little effort to stop the follow-through, but he saw himself refraining from punching his blade through Vergoin’s heart a dozen times in quick succession, and only setting the point there. Vergoin cursed at him. “Get him off me!”

  “To Gard,” said Silverpoint.

  “That was cheating!” said Quickfire. “Did you see his net? That was sorcery! He couldn’t possibly have thrown that the way he did! Not overhand!”

  “He didn’t use sorcery,” said Silverpoint.

  “He didn’t,” said Vergoin, scrambling to his feet. He pulled off the net in disgust. “You think I wouldn’t know a mage’s trick? He’s simply very fast. Animal cunning and speed. Not a bad job, Silverpoint. No wonder he’s made mincemeat of the Repeaters.”

  Vergoin swept Gard with what was intended to be a coldly assessing stare. Back in its depths an emotion glinted, however. “Not a bad job,” Vergoin repeated, and turned his back on Gard and walked from the hall.

  “Do you find it difficult to control?” Silverpoint asked. “This seeing yourself from without? Does it disorient you?”

  “No,” said Gard. “At least, not much. It only happens if I’m fighting. Was this why you wanted me to learn to meditate?”

  “In part.” Silverpoint leaned back and studied him. “I wasn’t certain you could do it. I hoped, to be sure. You understand what you must do, now?”

  “Learn more?”

  “Indeed you must. You know my language; now you must learn others, arcane and obscure. You will need them to read the other books I have in mind. They are for advanced students only. No one I have ever taught has got so far.”

  Two days later, Gard arrived at Silverpoint’s quarters to find Vergoin and Bhetla there before him, deep in conversation with the duke. “You face less risk than any of us,” Bhetla was saying. “You have only to do as you were bid, after all. No one will fault—” They broke off as Gard entered.

  “And here’s the creature himself,” said Vergoin. “We won’t keep you, Silverpoint. Just think about it, will you?” Vergoin stood and, with an ironical smile, bowed to Gard, and so took his leave. Bhetla nodded to Silverpoint and hurried after.

  “Why were they speaking of me?” asked Gard.

  “They admire your skill.” Silverpoint pushed a book across the table to Gard. “Cutfile’s Use of the Hooked Blade. Please give it your full attention, particularly chapter six.”

  When next he stepped into the arena, Gard found himself confronted by no less than three grinning champions among the Repeaters. Pocktuun had been rebodied, and Trathegost likewise, and a rangy warrior who carried a flail.

  “Yes,” bellowed Trathegost, “it is I, puny shadow! You thought you’d vanquished me, didn’t you? But I am come here to tell you that I will extract my revenge! And I am not alone! See who has come along for sweet spite’s sake! None other than Pocktuun the Earth-Shaker!” The masters applauded and cheered wildly. Pocktuun turned in the lights, holding up his cleaver.

  “But I will drink your blood first!” announced the newcomer. “I, Hrakfafa, the Bitterness of Death!” He lashed out with the flail and so cut his applause, for the audience immediately leaned forward to see what would happen.

  Gard sighed. A simple step back was enough to avoid the flail. Three fighters, three different weapons. He focused and saw the series of steps it would take to kill each of them. He took the necessary steps and watched himself sprinting forward, seizing Hrakfafa by the shoulders and somersaulting over him to pass between Pocktuun and Trathegost. Trathegost turned and swung with his mace, but missed Gard, striking Pocktuun instead. Pocktuun screamed in anger and went after Trathegost with his cleaver. Hrakfafa turned to see where Gard had got to, but Gard was behind him, beheading him at a stroke. Gard saw the red light that was Hrakfafa’s true form flying free, vanishing upward.

  Hrakfafa’s body staggered forward between Pocktuun and Trathegost, straight into the swing of Trathegost’s mace, and the corpse was hurled high up an
d struck the top of the arena wall, where it hung bleeding. Pocktuun got in a cleaver blow under Trathegost’s lifted arm and half-severed his leg at the thigh.

  Trathegost fell backward; as Pocktuun was bending over him with cleaver raised, Gard sprang to Pocktuun’s back and beheaded him. A yellow light fountained out with the blood, rose, and was gone. Jumping clear from the body before it collapsed, Gard likewise beheaded Trathegost, who winked at him before his head rolled away and the twilight-colored essence soared free.

  Gard looked up at the howling, cackling faces. Sweating and screaming, the masters shook their fists, leaped up and down in their seats. Some of the mistresses present had so far forgotten themselves as to tear open their bodices and expose their breasts to him. Some of them had black nipples. He had never seen black nipples before.

  There in his customary place sat Duke Silverpoint. Vergoin sat beside him. They were not looking at Gard. They were looking up at the rest of the audience. Silverpoint was nodding his head.

  “It seems wrong,” Gard said to Balnshik, as they bent over a grammar for an ancient and nearly forgotten language. “The Repeaters aren’t my enemies. They’re poor, and stupid, and they don’t have a chance.”

  “They know that, my dear,” said Balnshik. “They do not aspire to win. Only to amuse by dying as spectacularly as they may. For all the boasting and the insults, they are rather proud of you.”

  “I can see their spirits fly away, now, when I kill them.”

  “That is because you have learned to see as a demon sees. You have brought the two halves of yourself together, and so you are stronger. When you step outside yourself—when you float free of the shackles of time and space—then you are living as we live. When we are permitted to live.”