Second Kiss

by Robert Priest

  Later, when he put the sword aside and lay down on his straw pallet, the images kept coming at him like vultures darting about in the frailness of his remaining sanity, waiting for it to die. He couldn’t sleep, not that night nor the next.

  8

  Second Skin

  There was the sound of a shrill whistle. “Cut! Cut!” Ever since she’d arrived in the camp for special training, the one they called Zero had been spending many hours a day improving her accuracy by chopping off the heads of straw men. Sometimes her sword would find the narrow slit between their helmets and their body armour and sometimes it wouldn’t. Sometimes she hesitated.

  The whistle sounded again. “Cut.”

  Day after day Zero struck on command and with each successful blow one of the assistants would flip the straw head back into place and secure it for the next attack.

  “Do not hesitate. Hesitation is defeat. Strike. Now.”

  The only alternative to the tedium of decapitating straw men was the monotony of exercise: trekking up the tall stairs of the turret two at a time and then trotting back down many times a day, all through winter. The weighted bags she lifted over and over reshaped her arms, made her shoulder muscles strong. The weird focusing routines, the complex sword patterns she was learning, knit new neural networks in her brain, and, once in place, it was as though they had been there a thousand years, deeply delved. She fell into them easily and fluently. Lighthammer, unperturbed by his long unintended stay in the camp, continued to be impressed with her. Aside from her martial abilities she possessed clear leadership potential. There was hardly a Thrall or Freeman among the recruits who did not look to her to set the standard in whatever challenge or task he put them to. He himself could not help but admire her, but knew she was as yet untested.

  “Cut, cut, Zero.”

  For that reason he had her eating vast amounts of meat and drinking ale and slaying straw men. This often left her exhausted, but rarely miserable. She loved the rigorous physical training. She loved to climb, to slither through mud, to duck mock arrows, to make the same quick thrust a thousand times a day. She loved to practice the various kicks, the sudden lunges with the fist or the open hand designed to kill or maim. She grew skillful with a small hidden rapier. She knew how to slam the hilt of her sword against the side of a helmeted head so hard it could cause death or immediate unconsciousness. Such skills, as Lighthammer so approvingly put it, had the potential to “double or triple her casualty count.” She loved the quickness of mind in sword work, the utter focus. It was like finding some extra missing piece of oneself.

  Like most of those who had come to the camp as raw adolescent dreamers five months earlier, Zero was now much larger, stronger, and much more attuned to her fellow trainees. They were all “one scowl,” “one muscle” as Lighthammer proclaimed, when he was not insulting them. But it was not just physical strength. Even when the competition amongst them was fierce and nasty she was courteous and kind in victory, always offering her opponents a hand up if she defeated them. Only the large one they called Stone despised her. His distaste was obvious in the expression on his face anytime he encountered her. And with every increase in the esteem with which others beheld her, he boiled and seethed more. Most days, as Lighthammer berated him for his anger, as the others avoided or even openly mocked him, and most of all as Zero advanced through the ranks, he hardly knew what to do with all his hate.

  Lighthammer waited until spring was nearly upon them before he set Stone against Zero in a match. It wasn’t long, though, before Stone lost his temper and began to hack at her wildly. She easily deflected his blows, but when Lighthammer blew his whistle and shouted at Stone to stop, he ignored the order and kept furiously hacking and hewing at her as though he wanted to kill her.

  The whistle shrieked even louder. “You will stop immediately, or I will instruct her to do her worst to you,” Lighthammer shouted. But to no avail. It only seemed to fuel Stone’s frenzied onslaught. “Take him out then,” he yelled to Zero. There were numerous gaps in Stone’s defence and Lighthammer knew the girl was quite capable of finding an opening and ending the attack with one quick thrust, but she resisted. This time Lighthammer’s whistle blowing was augmented by the furious stomping of one foot. “Take him out, now!” he bellowed, but she just continued deflecting his blows. Suddenly Lighthammer yanked his own sword out and, before Stone could even gasp, his sword was struck from his hands. Lighthammer backed him up against a wall, the point of his blade pressing into his thick neck at the exact point where Xemion’s painted sword had once rested.

  “You are no longer with us. Take back your old name and your old ways. The mountain passes are now clear of snow. Just in time for you to leave us. Take your weapons and be out of this encampment before sundown,” he ordered in a quiet voice, his face livid with rage.

  When he was gone, Lighthammer turned on Zero, enraged. “Why did you disobey my direct order?” he bellowed.

  She hung her head. “I’m sorry, Tiri Lighthammer,” she said, visibly chastened. “I … I was waiting for the right opportunity.”

  “I did not order you to wait for an opportunity.”

  “You … you told me to take him out. But I would’ve had to wound him severely to take him out in that moment. And that seemed like it would be a waste.”

  “You are a waste. A waste of talent.”

  “I knew if I waited just a little longer he would leave himself so open I could disarm him.”

  Lighthammer’s only answer to this was to cough and spit, quite voluminously, at her feet. After that, he set out to test her. He instructed his assistant, Ingothelm, a brawny youth from the northwest part of the island, to begin stalking and ambushing her. Three times Ingothelm managed to come in close and quick enough to rest the edge of his cold blade upon her neck and say “You’re slain!” The fourth time he might have lost his own head if he hadn’t been wearing a collar of mail, for Zero blocked, thrust, and slashed through his ambush with speed and precision that was startling.

  As angry as the constant attacks made her, she could see they were working. Her response time was getting better and better, her attacks more and more automatic. Come the spring equinox when they would all return to Ulde to compete in the first Phaer Tourney in fifty years, there wouldn’t be a shred of hesitation or mercy left in her. And that was good, because, just as in ancient times, the Tourney would be a fight “by all means.” The vow of alliance would be suspended, the weapons would be real, and the combat would be intense and conceivably even deadly. And then, thought Zero, with increasing determination, I will fight honourably but fiercely, and I will win.

  The only thing that made her question the degree of ruthlessness she would need to achieve this goal was her feeling for the three Thrall sisters — now known by their warrior names: Asnina, Atathu, and Imalgha — whose quarters she still shared. Not only did they each consistently maintain overall scores just as high as hers in the various challenges and bouts Lighthammer set for them, but they had become her best friends. If it came to it, she wondered, could she muster enough gall to defeat one or all of them?

  They were, after all, her sisters in arms. Together, when they had any spare time, they did all the things that young Phaer women had always done. They sang the old songs, arm-wrestled, put war paint on, and, increasingly, traded tales of romantic gossip. The Thrall sisters thought themselves glamorous and did their best to bring out this quality in Zero. Their heads were full of rumour and speculation about whom Veneetha Azucena’s beloved might be and who among the other recruits was smitten with whom. Sometimes, they would tease Zero that she was smitten with the recruit named Fargold. He had a long, elegant nose and his accent was a little like hers, and he seemed to always be staring at her. But Zero only shook her head and smiled. Once they asked her if she had ever kissed him, and she answered quickly, “No.”

  “Have you ever kissed anyone — on the lips?” Imalgha, the eldest sister, asked.

  Zero thought ab
out it a moment. “No” was the somewhat exasperated answer.

  “But why not?” Imalgha persisted. “Kissing is delicious. When I get back to Ulde I’m going to kiss that little Lirodello’s lips till I make him squeal.”

  Zero clearly found all this quite embarrassing, but she answered despite her red face. “I would only kiss the person I know for certain is my beloved.”

  This caused a strange pain in her heart. She felt it very rarely now. But when it came she knew what to do about it. She waited until she was alone and then she reached under the bed where she kept her staff and drew out the other thing she kept there — the little black bottle. There was only a little liquid left in the bottom. She no longer remembered where she had found it, but she certainly remembered its effect. Seeing how little was left, she hesitated. Maybe she should save it. She almost put it back under the bed but then she heard for the first time in a long time a fragment of a strange backward sounding melody running through her mind. She hated that melody. She removed the cork, tilted the bottle to her full lips, and took the last soothing sip.

  9

  Nonsense and Riddles

  On the third day of his insomnia, when Yarra was absent due to a cold, Musea, who usually sat back in her stone chair with both eyes rolled back as she spoke, greeted him with a full-on stare and a big smile. Xemion was not in a very good mood but he returned the smile politely. He prepared a quill, and since Yarra wasn’t there to hold the cone, he positioned himself as near as possible to the old Thrall so that he would not miss any of her words. But this particular afternoon she did not begin to speak. Instead she continued to stare at him, a small glint of mischief clearly visible in her huge Thrall eyes.

  “When shall we begin to begin?” he asked somewhat tentatively, a little uncomfortable with that strange look.

  “I don’t know … when?” the crackly old voice asked.

  Xemion didn’t quite know what to make of this. His brow furrowed in confusion.

  “Well?” she persisted.

  “What do you mean, ‘well’?” Xemion asked in return.

  “Well, aren’t you going to tell me the answer to your riddle?”

  “My riddle?”

  “You know, the one you just asked about when we’ll begin to begin.”

  “Oh!” Xemion mustered a laugh. “That wasn’t a riddle. That was a question. I was just asking you when you were going to begin dictating.”

  A look of disappointment crossed the old Thrall’s face. “Oh, and I suddenly had such an appetite for a riddle.”

  “Sorry,” Xemion offered respectfully.

  “But now I must have a riddle. Do you know a good riddle?”

  Xemion thought for a moment. “I can only think of one riddle,” he said, “but I only know the question part of it … not the answer.”

  “Well ask me. Maybe I’ll know.”

  Xemion hesitated before proceeding to recite the riddle that had been posed by the little locket library on the night he and Saheli had fled from Ilde:

  Who’ll be gouged,

  And who’ll be gored

  By the sword

  Within the sword?

  Will its power

  Be ignored?

  O, who will wield

  The paper sword?

  Oh, that’s so easy,” the old woman chortled. But then she remained silent, teasingly.

  “Well, what’s the answer?” Xemion asked, though he wasn’t sure now if he really wanted to know.

  “Spell the word sword,” she said eagerly, rubbing her ancient hands together. “You’ll love this.”

  Xemion obliged. “S-W-O-R-D.”

  “Now just take off that first s and what’s left?”

  “W-O-R-D,” Xemion replied.

  “And what does that spell?” she asked, the glint of mirth threatening to explode at any moment in her eyes.

  “Word,” he confirmed. She laughed out loud and Xemion shuddered. An almost superstitious chill flickered through him and he remembered again that feeling of being mocked he’d experienced when he’d first heard the riddle.

  “The word word is inside the word sword, you see? The word is the sword inside the sword.” Xemion nodded, frowning. “Words can cut. Words can pierce,” she added, raising her eyebrows.

  “But what is the paper sword then?” he asked.

  “I was just getting to that.” She cackled again with true delight. “Spell it, too.”

  Frowning, Xemion began. “P-A-P-E-R-S—”

  “Stop!” she ordered him. Xemion halted, and Bargest looked up from his mistress’s feet, alarmed by the sharpness of her tone.

  “Now, what have you spelled so far?” she asked, a knuckle at her nostrils as she tried hard to contain a laugh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what have you spelled so far? What does P-A-P-E-R-S spell?”

  “Papers?”

  “Yes, now go on. What’s does the rest of it spell?”

  “Word?”

  “That’s right. So what is the paper sword?” she asked with great relish.

  “Paper’s word,” he answered quietly. And for a second time a superstitious chill flickered through him.

  “And so what is the answer to the whole riddle?” Musea asked merrily.

  “I don’t know. Who will be gouged and gored?”

  “You, Xemion.” She was so taken by her mirth at this she had to slap her knee to help express it. “Who has been more gouged and gored by words than you, Xemion?” Xemion visibly flinched at this insight. She nodded and laughed out loud. “You see? You came to learn to swordfight but you’ve been having a word-fight ever since. And so the answer to the second part is also you. You, Xemion. Every day as you have scribed these old stories you have wielded the paper sword, paper’s word — literature.”

  Xemion was looking less and less happy as she spoke. And then she said something that no one had said to him before but which several people would say to him later. She said it like it was just a last little teasing bit of gaiety. “Why, you must be severely spell crossed to have attracted a riddle like that.”

  “I don’t think I attracted it,” Xemion protested weakly. “It was just a coincidence that that riddle came up at that moment.”

  “Everything coincides. Everything is just a coincidence,” Musea said knowingly.

  “Time for dictation?” Xemion asked, as cheerily as possible. She nodded in reply. Xemion took a sip of water from the bottle that had been left on the table. It had a strangely familiar tang to it, but he couldn’t at first place it. He took up his pen and said “Ready,” but when she began to speak, strange syllables Xemion had never heard before emerged from her mouth.

  “Musea, Musea, I apologize for interrupting, but I no longer understand you. I don’t know what you are saying.”

  The ancient face cracked open in her broadest smile yet. “Listen.”

  “I can listen but I can’t really write it out. I—”

  “And remember.”

  “But how can I remember such a long thing?”

  “You drank, didn’t you, from the waters of memory?” She spoke so clearly. He felt a little shocked.

  “I did, but how could you know?”

  She nodded jovially at the bottle Xemion had just drunk from and he realized why the strange taste was so familiar.

  “Show me your hand,” she said.

  Obediently but with some annoyance Xemion stuck out his hand. Then she did something that surprised him. He had always assumed that the whiteness of her hands was the result of old age. But all this time she had been wearing white gloves. She used her left hand now to peel off the glove on her right hand. Xemion saw only a moment of its bright red colour before it slipped into his hand, quick and warm. She shook it a while, gazing into his eyes, and then she released it and said, “So remember this.”

  Immediately Xemion’s hand began to tingle and the strange words began again. Despite himself, Xemion listened attentively to the long,
strange sentences that followed.

  10

  An End of Stories

  After that strange encounter with the old woman, there was barely a moment of the day when Xemion did not hear some fragment of Musea’s strange words slipping through his mind. At night when he lay down to sleep they would go interminably round and round. Even if he forced other words over them, even if he recited poetry over them, or said “No No No” over them, the words would return and trouble him with their strange familiarity. They were like a long nonsense song always verging on becoming clear and making sense but never quite doing so. And, despite his fatigue, something in him wanted to know what they meant, so often he would find himself wide awake and intently listening. The combination of sleeplessness, aggravation, and outright anger resulting from this gnawed away at him and wore him down. This dawn, he thought, I will stomp back to the underdome and demand that Musea explain. And if she refused, he would refuse to do any more writing. Not even Veneetha Azucena could sway him any longer.

  Lost in such thoughts, Xemion actually slipped into a badly needed minute or two of sleep, but he was soon startled by a sound outside, an awesome cry of some kind of animal, which echoed down Phaer Point and all along the moonlit High Street right to his room. And the cry did not stop. It was as though there were too much of it for this world. Xemion rose quickly, already dressed, and dashed in the direction of the underdome.

  With the sorrowful echoes leading him on, Xemion made his way to the source of those cries, and it was indeed as he feared, reverberating up from the Thrall chamber. With the same quiet steps he had once executed along still forest pathways, he now made his way down the smooth, worn stone stairs to the underdome.