Guardians Watch

by Eric T Knight

  “I fell into a cholla cactus once,” she said, pointing at a waist-high cactus with its stiff, thorn-covered segments. “When I was a little girl. I was trying to climb this big boulder out behind the Haven and I slipped and fell right into it. It took hours for Siena to pull all the thorns out of me. She said I snuck out the very next day and she found me out at the boulder trying to climb it again. I was so determined. I made it too.” She chuckled. “I guess I’ve always been a little hardheaded.”

  Later, they were picking their way across a dry wash that was choked with mesquite and catclaw. Netra pointed to one of the catclaw trees.

  “You want to be careful with this plant, Shorn. The thorns bite deep and they’ll shred you. The trick is, once it catches you, stop. Don’t bull through like you always do. Back up and pick them free. Otherwise, you’re going to tear yourself up.”

  One thing Netra had noticed the first day of traveling with Shorn was how he walked. He didn’t walk so much as stomp. It was as though every plant and rock was a personal affront. He kicked over rocks, ripped off branches with the temerity to accost his passage and simply stepped on whatever was small enough to fall under his feet. He left a trail of destruction a blind man could follow.

  She ducked under a low-hanging branch and skirted around a catclaw tree that seemed to reach for her. Right behind her was Shorn. It didn’t sound like he was being careful at all. She started to warn him again, then stopped. If he didn’t want to listen, that was his choice. She heard a grunt and knew he’d caught himself on the catclaw. She turned just as he growled and tried to force his way through, but only succeeded in driving the thorns deeper.

  “Stop,” Netra said. “You’re only making it worse.” He gave her a baleful glare, but he stopped. “Now, back up. I told you, you can’t fight through this bush. Once it’s caught you, you have to stop and go back. Most of the thorns will let go then, and the others you can unhook as you go.” Reluctantly, Shorn stepped back, uttering some words in his strange language, words she was certain were not compliments. He got most of them unhooked from his skin, but grew angry at the last branch, a small one that had gone through his pants and embedded its thorns in his leg. That one he grabbed and just ripped from the tree, then yanked it from his leg and threw it from him. Of course, his pants ended up with a tear and his leg started dripping blood.

  Netra just shook her head as he came up to her. “I’m guessing you’ve never been anyplace quite like this. But out here, everything’s got thorns. Lots of them. You can’t just charge straight through everything. Here, look at me. This is what I mean.”

  Shorn gave her an irritated look, then shifted his gaze over her shoulder, pointedly ignoring her. “Look at me. C’mon, look.” Slowly, he did. “How many scratches do you see on me? How many tears in my clothing? Thorns?” There were none. “Now look at you.” She pointed out half a dozen scratches, some still bleeding. “Your clothes will be ruined in a day at this rate. You’ve got to give a little. Learn to go around instead of fighting through.”

  He frowned at her, but made no reply.

  “Now, this isn’t so bad, but you’re going to see worse. Let me tell you about cactus. It’s a kind of plant covered in thorns. No, not like those on the mesquite or the catclaw. I said covered in thorns. You’re really going to have to pay attention to them.” He had stopped looking at her again and she became a little aggravated. “This is important. Listen to me. See, there’s one now,” she said, pointing to a cactus by their feet. It was a small cactus with relatively minor thorns. “Now, it may not look like much but…”

  While she was talking he very deliberately stomped on the cactus, which flattened under the impact. Then he lifted his foot and made a show of looking at the bottom of his boot. No thorns were stuck there.

  “You win,” Netra said, throwing up her hands and turning away. “Throw yourself on every cactus we see.” Just wait, she thought. Just wait.

  It was only a couple of hours later that Netra saw the first jumping cholla. “Now that is a cactus,” she said, pointing. “It’s called jumping cholla. See how it looks soft and fuzzy? It isn’t. Those are thorns. Thousands of them, covering every inch of the plant. The spines are sharper than any needle, sharp enough to easily pierce the thickest leather boots.” She looked at his feet. “Best of all, the jumping cholla likes to come with you. That’s how it spreads seeds. You know how when you bump up against a mesquite or a catclaw the thorns stick you, but unless you rip them free they stay behind when you move on?” Shorn was looking at the horizon, giving away nothing of what he did or didn’t know. “Well, these don’t. When the jumping cholla sticks you, it stays with you. A whole chunk of cactus—just covered on all sides with thorns—simply breaks off and continues on with you. Seriously, these pieces are the size of your fist…” She paused at looked at his enormous hands. “Well, not your fist, but a normal-sized one.

  “But that’s not all. Remember the thorns you got in your hand earlier? How you just pulled them out? Well, that doesn’t work with the jumping cholla. The spines have tiny barbs all up and down them, so small you can’t see them. But you’ll know they’re there when you try and pull them out. Because they don’t want to. Come out, that is. What you end up with is a big old chunk of spines stuck in you that you can’t pull out and no way to grab onto the thing to pull it out.” She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “Know what’s even better? When you’re trying to get that one chunk out, the one that’s sticking thirty or forty needles in you that hurt like the devil, you’ll end up with a few more chunks of the cactus stuck in your feet and legs. Because there’s always a bunch of them lying on the ground around the main plant, like thorny traps. Just waiting for you to blunder into them. Which you will, because it seems to be what you do best.

  “Oh, and one more thing. It’s funny how those furry little critters that are just lying harmlessly on the ground seem to find a way to get stuck way up on your calf or your shin somewhere. That’s because they, you know, jump.”

  Shorn met her eye during the last part of her speech, his expression clearly saying he thought she was exaggerating.

  Sure enough, that afternoon the jumping cholla increased in number. They topped a ridge and she saw that the far side was covered with the stuff. It would have been easy enough to stay along the top of the ridge and skirt the patch, but she was feeling annoyed by Shorn’s attitude and instead followed the slim game trail they were on right into the heart of it.

  They had not gone far when she heard a muffled oath behind her. Shorn had a chunk of jumping cholla stuck in his foot. He bent to pull it out, got too close to a cactus, and got one stuck in his forehead. With an outraged cry, he straightened and grabbed the piece stuck in his head. The thorns bit deep into his fingers, but he snarled and tore the piece free, leaving a scattering of thorns behind in his head. Now the piece was stuck thoroughly to his hand. He shook his hand, hard, but nothing happened.

  “Shorn, look out!” Netra called, but it was already too late.

  Shorn’s face clouded with rage. He swore again and stepped back. Like magic, three more bristling chunks appeared on him, one on the back of his calf, almost up to his knee. “What is this plant?” he bellowed. With his free hand he drew a sword and struck the offending cactus, whereupon several more came free and stuck in him. He looked like a pincushion.

  And that was finally too much for Netra. She gave herself over to the laughter, laughing so hard she had to sit down. When she recovered enough to look up, Shorn was prying ineffectively at one on his leg with a sword. She went to him, still wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, Shorn. I didn’t mean to laugh. I just couldn’t help it. You looked so funny there and I…” She chuckled again, then restrained herself. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts. Here, let me help you. I think you’ve gotten off to a bad start here,” she said. “I take it you don’t have cactus where you come from?”

  He shook his head and winced as she pried a chunk off him.

  “Maybe t
his can be a learning experience for you.” He gave her a baleful look and she laughed. “I’m serious. You know, you deal with everything by just charging right at it. It doesn’t really matter what it is. Maybe you need to learn that sometimes you have to go around an obstacle. Not everything can just be bull rushed.”

  “I do not need a lesson from a plant.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sometime later, when all of the cactus was out of him, Shorn looked at a single thorn he held in his fingers. He held it up to the light, squinting to see it better. Then he looked at her.

  “I do not like this plant.”

  That night they camped in a wash. Netra built a fire and they sat there in silence. From the darkness came a rustling sound and Shorn’s hand went to a weapon, but Netra stopped him.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Just wait, and watch.”

  Sometime later she saw a pair of eyes glittering in the darkness and she pointed them out to him. They stayed still and finally a tiny face topped with a pair of huge ears popped into sight over the top of her pack, regarding them curiously. It crawled over her pack, then paused, and they could see its bushy, striped tail.

  “Ring tail,” she whispered. “Terrible thieves.”

  A while later they heard coyotes in the distance, first one, then two, and finally a whole chorus of them. Bats swooped overhead and an owl hooted from the top of a saguaro.

  Later, Netra asked Shorn something that had been on her mind for some time. “Can’t you get in your metal ship and fly home? Even if you were exiled, there must be some who would welcome you.”

  He was quiet for some time and she began to think he wouldn’t answer her. “My kelani crashed. It is…broken. It was made that it would do so. “Krenth-an can never return.” He looked down at his hands.

  “I’m sorry, Shorn,” she said softly. “I truly am. I know it can be no replacement, but I want you to know that you are always welcome anywhere I have a home. With me you are not krenth-an. With me you are family.”

  The look he gave her was surprised, but he said nothing. Once again they sat in silence, while the moon rose and climbed into the sky. Shorn was almost completely motionless during that time, staring into the flames silently. Netra was getting ready for bed when he surprised her by starting to talk.

  “I am a Themorian. We war with the Sedrians. It is velen’aa, a war which does not end. My fathers have fought them always.”

  “A war that doesn’t end? What’s the point of that?”

  He gave her a baleful look, then shrugged. “It is the way it is.” He sat in thought for a while. “Velen’aa is not just war. It is any fight which fills a warrior’s life. To embrace it is the beginning of unserti…what your old ones would call…wise?”

  “Oh, you mean wisdom.” Netra shook her head. “That doesn’t seem very wise to me.”

  “Do you wish to hear my words or not?”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Velen’aa leads to terin’ai.”

  “What is terin’ai?”

  “It is the…what do you call that which cannot be found?”

  “Hidden?”

  He nodded. “Yes. It is the hidden, the shadow of a self. To face it is to face one’s self honestly, without excuses or regrets. It is the greatest battle a Themorian can fight—all Themorians, not just the naak’kii, what you call warriors.” He cleared his throat. “Terin’ai is the reason for velen’aa. Do you understand?”

  Netra started to say she didn’t—what kind of crazy belief required a person to fight an unending battle in order to reach some kind of wisdom that was hidden inside?—then saw the look on Shorn’s face and instead nodded. “Sure.”

  “To face the one inside is not easy. A Themorian must not flinch. Even if what he faces goes against what he feels in here,” he touched his chest, “he cannot turn away. He must be strong and sure. Only then can terin’ai be found. Only then can he earn the right to stand before the Has Trium’an, the Keepers of the Blessed Land, after his death. Only then will they allow him entrance.”

  “I think I understand,” Netra said. “It is a spiritual path. If you follow it, your gods will reward you after death.”

  “We do not believe in gods,” Shorn rumbled. “Only the Keepers, who were once like us but stood tall and earned more.”

  Netra nodded, confused again, but not wanting Shorn to stop. It was clear the words were difficult for him to say. Over and over he started to speak, then hesitated, while he seemed to wrestle with something inside himself.

  “It is important that you understand this, or you will not understand the rest. You must know that I led many warriors, but I was never snek or cla’sich. Such are beneath notice.”

  “What are those?”

  Shorn’s lip curled, showing many teeth. “Snek are leaders who waste their men in foolish battles, calling it terin’ai, instead of stupidity. Cla’sich are cowards, who hide behind others, then hide it from themselves.” He lifted his chin. “I am less than the vessernees, small bugs that bite under here.” He motioned to his arm pit and Netra suppressed a smile. It was hard to imagine this fearsome warrior plagued by something as simple as a bug. “But I am not snek or cla’sich.”

  He drew a deep breath. “I have fought Sedrians many times and I have killed many. I never refused my orders and I never doubted when I killed.” He stared fiercely at her, willing her to believe. And the thing was, she did. She’d seen him kill and walk away without a backward glance.

  “We were ordered to attack a Sedrian colony on the first moon of Quantus. I commanded the kelani Hil Mek and five more besides. The colony had been left undefended. It was an easy opportunity.” Now it got really difficult for him. Twice he started to speak and almost choked on the words. The third time he succeeded. “There were only young there. No warriors. It was a school for those who only recently left their homes, who were just beginning their training. They were brave. They were not afraid to die. They did not ask for mercy.”

  Netra sat forward, already fearing, dreading what he would say.

  “But I could not give the order. I called the kelani back before they could fire.” He lowered his head, his great fists clenching and unclenching.

  For a moment Netra was stunned, speechless. “But…I don’t understand. That was a good thing you did. Killing helpless children isn’t something to be proud of.”

  When he fixed his eyes on her, a deep rage burned in them. “You understand nothing,” he hissed. “I refused my duty. I threw away everything.”

  “But surely when your leaders learned it was only children—”

  He cut her off with a curt gesture. “You do not listen. It mattered not their age. The young of today become the warriors of tomorrow. To let them live is only to let them kill your own people someday.”

  “But you saved so many lives!”

  He shook his head, still glaring at her. “I saved nothing. My officers…” He searched for the word. “They took my command. Then they destroyed the school and killed them all. On Themor I went before the Grave and they spoke my guilt and my punishment. Exile for me. My family, all of them, became unnamed. The house of Mak’morn is no more.” He lowered his head and with his next words she understood that his anger was not for her at all, but for himself. He poured out the barbs he had been lashing himself with every moment since that day. “There is something wrong with me.” He looked at his hands helplessly, as if they belonged to someone else. “I do not know what it is. I cannot make it go away. You must know,” and here his self-loathing reached new heights, “that it is still in me. If I was there again, still I could not give the order. I am no naak’kii. I will never face Koni Anat, who comes for true warriors at the time of their death. I will never face him in the only real battle of a warrior’s life. I am broken. There is nothing left of me.”

  Netra didn’t know what to say. She wanted to rail against his people, the sickness in them that made them live so brutally. She wanted to recoil from him,
this alien being who had reacted with mercy and compassion and now hated himself for it. She wanted to rage at him until he saw how wrong he was. But all that came out was, “In my world, mercy is to be valued. We believe that to stay your hand is more difficult than is attack. What you feel in you should be cherished and nurtured.”

  He stared at her, and she could see that he wanted to believe her, but his self-hatred was too strong. Finally, he stood. “This is why I must repay my debt to you. It is all I have left.” Then he walked off into the darkness.

  Thirty-six

  The ache in her heart had not subsided the next morning, but Netra knew there was nothing more she could say to Shorn right then. He was wrapped tight around himself, walled off with loathing and self-contempt. Her words would be pebbles thrown at a fortress. But neither could she stand aside and do nothing. So she did the only thing she could: she talked to him. Not about what he had done, but about her world, about the life around them. She shared with him her love of the land and all its denizens. She named plants—the towering saguaros standing stately on the hillsides, the tough grasses that eked out a living between blazing sun and arid soil, the spindly, wax-leafed creosote that smelled so good after a rain—and pointed out the birds, a badger den, coyote tracks and the discarded skin of a snake that had molted.

  She showed these things to him and she told him stories, whatever came to her: the time she’d trapped a gopher and caught it with her bare hands, only to drop it when it bit her. The time when she was little and came across her first velvet ant. It looked like a brightly colored tuft of fur blowing across the ground, but when she picked it up it stung her and she cried for an hour.