Ix introduced herself and explained her curiosity and how she had followed the Collector. When all was said and done, Ix had agreed to work for the Gray Man, who was impressed with her abilities to infiltrate so far into his keep, not to mention fight his large minion to a standstill.
She had served him ever since. Not because she had to. No, she had more than enough money. Not because he could really do anything for her. She served him because she was the best, and to be the best she had to keep in practice, had to search for the next challenge. She figured he would have more than enough jobs to keep her in practice. And he did. He did indeed.
Shaking her head to clear the memories, Ix finished gathering her supplies. Concentrating, she vibrated, shimmered, and then disappeared from the Gray Fortress.
Several hops later, she finally arrived near the compound. It was inefficient and frustrating to have to teleport several times to reach her destination. If she would have been familiar with the location, familiar with the feeling of the unique vibrations there, she could have traveled directly to the spot. Since she didn't, she had to make her way there more slowly.
The important thing with her talent was to prevent teleporting and rematerializing inside a tree, rock, animal, or anything else. She could make hops and project her senses in front of her so that she didn't disastrously materialize inside something, but with only a rough location, she couldn't travel that far south to an unknown location in one go.
She had teleported just a few miles from the compound and had immediately gone there to observe before taking any other action. She scouted all around the compound, watching it for several hours. There were three people there, servants. It seemed that it was as she suspected: the scholar and his guards had gone.
To be certain, she waited until it got dark and then made her way into the compound. There was only one person keeping watch and he was not very attentive. She easily maneuvered around the area and confirmed that there were no people there, other than the three she'd seen.
She was a shadow, unobserved and unsensed. She circled back to the man keeping watch. Easily coming up behind him without being detected, she applied a chokehold until he was unconscious, and brought him to an area a half mile from the compound. She waited for him to wake.
When he did so, she began to ask questions. It didn’t take much more than vague threats of violent torture to find out what the man knew, which was little. Most of the rest of the servants had fled in different directions, afraid of retaliation from the Gray Man’s forces. The three who remained thought it would be just as risky to try to make it through the forest to a town or village and so stayed, taking a chance that they were insignificant enough to be overlooked.
The doctor, who called himself “Dr. Walt” according to the captured man, had left with his two protectors and the other man, Sam, a week and a half after the attack. They had gone southwest.
Ix was experienced at interrogation and kept pushing the man for other information. He finally recalled that he had overheard the doctor telling his protectors that they must go to the Gray Fortress.
“The Gray Fortress?” Ix asked. “Why would they go there?” The man didn’t know and Ix herself couldn’t think of a reason. Still, she was sure the man was telling the truth.
When she had taken all the information from the man that was useful, she left him, bewildered and frightened, by simply teleporting to a thick stand of trees just outside the small clearing in which she was interrogating him.
Watching from the foliage, she saw him look around in surprise, take a deep breath, and tentatively get to his feet. Looking around again, he slowly edged out of the clearing and back toward the compound, obviously familiar with the area. When he reached the trees and nothing happened, he broke into a run. The others wouldn’t try to follow her, she knew.
She left the three alive. She was not being paid to kill them and they were not a threat. They would never know how close they came to death, though. A less professional assassin would have killed all three.
Ix teleported a few miles north, found a nice defensible location in a small hollow, wrapped herself in her cloak, and went to sleep. She would begin tracking her prey at first light. She would find them, she would kill this Dr. Walt's guards, and she would take him back to the Gray Man. With pleasant thoughts of meeting the challenge of his protectors, she went to sleep.
Chapter 20
Sam woke abruptly, groggy and wondering where he was. He was disoriented, so tired that he didn't even remember falling asleep. Shaking his head and trying to rub the sleep from his eyes, he sat up and looked around. No, he wasn't home. The gray/tan colored rough cloth of which the tent was made surrounded him, encasing him. He was on Gythe, and he was in his tent.
Thinking back to the day before, he realized that he now had a rakkeban friend that he could ride. It was a strange feeling, one that would definitely take some getting used to. As he swiveled his head to survey his small tent, his eyes caught the shape of something just to his right. He turned his head slowly, heart racing, then jumped when the shape resolved into a person. His wide eyes focused and he saw that it was Nalia.
“You scared the wits out of me,” he said to her. Was she smirking under that mask? It would be impossible for him to tell if she was, but it felt like she was smirking at him.
“I am sorry that you are so easily frightened. I came to get you so we can start your training in earnest. Are you ready?”
“Yes, I think so. I mean, yes, definitely. Just let me get something to eat first.”
She shook her head slightly. “No, it would be better if you did not eat. That could get...messy. I said your training would start in earnest. We are finished taking it easy on you, Rindu and I. Now you must learn.”
Gulping, Sam got up and followed Nalia outside.
Two hours later, Sam was exhausted, lying flat on his back on the grass and trying to catch his breath. She had been right. Had he eaten, he would not have been able to keep the food in his stomach through all the intense activity. For a wonder, he was not as bruised as he would have thought he'd be. Nalia seemed to be taking it to heart to actually try to train him. She didn't seem focused on just trying to beat him up anymore. That was good. Skitter, as was his habit, lounged under a nearby bush, watching. Sam was thankful the hapaki wasn't in a teasing mood today, though he did recognize a few stray thoughts filter through during his training, thoughts that seemed extraordinarily like laughter to him.
“You have good reflexes and good coordination.” she said to him. As he couldn't help a small smile from playing across his face, she continued, “For a child. But I must teach you to fight as an adult. We must go beyond children's games.”
Another almost-laugh from Skitter drifted through Sam's mind.
Sam sighed loudly. “I am trying, Nalia. I really am. I just don't understand how I am supposed to get better if I can't practice movements slowly until I perfect them. Isn't there a set of exercises made up of fighting postures and strikes and blocks that I can practice so my body gets used to doing them? That’s the way we train in fighting on my world.”
“We have told you that is not the way of things. The method of which you speak is used here on Gythe as well, but not by those who know. Not by the Zouyim and not by the Sapsyra. If you wish to be an expert at combat, you must leave behind what you knew before and grasp what I am telling you.”
“I want to,” he said, “I really do. I just don't understand how I can do it.” He didn’t like it that he sounded, even to himself, like he was whining.
She huffed. “Sit up, in a meditating position.” He did so. She sat next to him, her knee touching his. He felt a tingle, but it quickly went away when she readjusted so that their knees no longer touched.
“Now, breathe well and deeply. Relax your whole body, go to the edge of trance. Do you know this, of what I speak? Trance?”
He had already started deeply breathing. “The feeling of lightness, the feeling that your self
is separating from your physical form? Is that what you're talking about?”
“Yes and no.” she answered. “For now, we will say that you are correct. Can you do this thing, bring yourself to that feeling, but not fully go into a trance?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That is the khulim, ‘dream’ in Old Kasmali. It is the state of perfect consciousness and relaxation. Bring yourself to khulim.”
For the next hour, Nalia coached Sam, trying to get him to just the right point to be receptive to the energies surrounding them. To Sam, it seemed that she tried everything she could think of. She was obviously getting frustrated.
“Stop,” she finally said. “Do you feel nothing of the currents of energy that swirl around you?”
He felt his face growing warm. “I do, sometimes. I can't seem to pick anything up right now, though. Maybe I'm nervous. Maybe I just can't do it.” He looked toward the ground, plucked a blade of grass and fiddled with it. Anything to not have to look her in the mask.
“You have it in you, Sam. You have a natural affinity for the universal energy. I can feel it in you. Rindu can feel it in you. It is my failure that I have not been able to get you to recognize it.”
“No, it's not your—” he started.
“Please be silent. Let me think for a moment.” She sat quietly, not moving.
After several minutes, she turned her head toward him. “Stay where you are. I will try something. While I do so, please bring yourself back to the point you were at earlier, just short of being in a trance. Khulim. I must stand to do this.”
She stood and watched him as he began breathing rhythmically and deeply again. Soon, he was in the familiar almost-trance, the khulim.
Seeing he was ready, or sensing it, she began to sing.
Sam was so shocked, he almost lost his near-trance, his eyes snapping open to see her standing 20 feet away from him, her body moving to an internal rhythm.
Forcing his eyes closed and regulating his breathing, he relaxed and allowed the song to pass over him. The tones caressed him, massaged his skin, comforted him. With his eyes closed, he felt as if he could see the sound traveling past him as swirls of light.
He had once thought of the way she moved as a symphony. That movement, that symphony, was to this as a simple tune blown on a tin whistle was to a song played by a master pianist. Though his eyes were closed, he felt tears pushing through his eyelids and sliding down his cheeks.
The sound was inhuman in its beauty. He had heard talented singers before, but this was much more. It wasn't wholly the sound. The vibrations of the song tore at him, causing him to move and sway. Before he knew it, his body was moving and he could do nothing, wanted to do nothing, to stop it.
Opening his eyes, he saw that for every movement Nalia made, his body responded with its own movement. They were not the same, not like he was a puppet and she the puppet master, but the movements were somehow sympathetic, complementary. It was the most amazing feeling he had ever had.
After a period of time, which could have been mere minutes or several hours, Nalia slowed her song and then finally trailed off, stopping completely. Sam's body, feeling as it had been suddenly released, sagged. And he thought he was exhausted before!
“What was that?” he asked her, breathless.
“It was the Song of Battle. Did you feel it? Did your body try to respond?”
“Yes, it did. It moved, as yours did. Sometimes in the same way and sometimes in a way that just seemed to fit perfectly with the way you moved, though different. What kind of spell was that? What magic?”
She tilted her head slightly to the side. “Perhaps it could be called magic. I do not know of such things. You would have to ask Rindu. However, it was just a small example of what we have been trying to teach you. Each battle, each combat, has its own vibrations, its own internal sound. A true master of combat can recognize the unique battle song and then move in accordance with it. It is in this way that you become invincible.”
Eyes growing wide, he asked: “It makes it so that you can't be killed? It makes you impervious to weapons?”
Staring at him through that mask for a long moment, she clicked her tongue. “Sometimes, I have high hopes for you, Sam. But sometimes you really disappoint me.”
“Like now,” he whispered.
“Like now. A master of the song of battle becomes invincible because as she moves in harmony with the sound and vibrations of the particular battle, she can seem to be in several places at once, and no place. Weapons cannot hit her because she harnesses the particular vibrations and acts in harmony with them. It is the same for striking.”
“I see. That's how you fought all those attackers at once and slipped through their weapons without getting hit. You know, that night at the compound.”
“Yes. So, do you know now what Rindu and I have been trying to force into that hard skull of yours? Do you see that the way does not lie in learning exercises but in sensing the song of battle, ‘singing’ along and moving with it?”
“I understand. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to tap into it without you singing to me every time I fight. Though I could think of many worse things. Your voice is amazing.”
She scoffed. “I am well trained. That is all. Now it is Rindu's turn to try to mold you into something other than a silly child. Do not forget what I taught you today. There is much more to learn.”
“I know. Thank you Nalia. I am privileged to have you as an instructor.”
She nodded. “Begone.”
As he headed toward Rindu's tent, Sam wondered, not for the first time, just how ugly Nalia was. With everything he'd seen, he could not believe she was truly hideous underneath that mask. In fact, mask or not, he was thinking she was more and more beautiful all the time.
Oh, you're just infatuated with her abilities, Skitter sent. Don't get your hopes up, Sam. You're just a silly child to her.
I know, Skitter. I know. He felt as if all his energy had fled.
Sam made it to Rindu’s tent, mind abuzz with what had just happened. It was as if he had been walking around with heavily tinted glasses on all his life and now they had been removed. Things were so much clearer now. Was this what the father and daughter had been trying to teach him all this time? How could he not have seen it?
He decided he must learn more about the vibrations that seemed to be all around him, and about the song of battle specifically. He called to Rindu from his tent opening. When the Zouy emerged from his tent, he gave Sam a long look. For the briefest of moments, he saw Rindu’s eyes change as if they were going out of focus and then snap back to clarity. “Ah,” he said, “Nalia has demonstrated the Song of Battle to you.” It was not a question.
“Yes, she did.” Sam averted his eyes so Rindu could not see his embarrassment. “Now I think I begin to see what you have been trying to teach me. I want to learn more.”
A rare smile lit up Rindu’s face. “Good, good. It will be my honor to teach you.”
The two went to a nearby meadow. It was flattish, free of large trees, and covered with fine grasses that swayed gently in the late morning breeze. Having Sam sit in the middle of the meadow, the monk took his normal position directly in front of Sam, knees almost touching.
For the next hour, Rindu had Sam control his breathing and attempt to enter the khulim. Each time, just when he was finally sure he would grasp the feeling, it skittered off like a water drop thrown onto a hot griddle. He could not, for the life of him, get the feeling back that he had earlier.
Rindu, ever patient, sat motionless, barely breathing. Sam tried repeatedly, but could not relax enough to find his center.
“Do you feel nothing?” Rindu asked without moving and without opening his eyes.
“No, I can’t seem to focus. I was able to do it earlier, but I can’t now.”
“I see. Your mind is full of the new experience you had earlier. Perhaps now is not a good time to consciously try touch the rohw. Let us try something else.�
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Rising, he bade Sam to rise with him. He reached into the small pouch he wore on the sash around his trousers and pulled out a length of soft cloth. “Tie this around your head. Make sure your eyes are blocked off so that you cannot see.”
Sam did as he was told.
“Are you ready?” Rindu asked.
Nodding slightly, Sam started to speak: “Ye—” Rindu struck him on the side of the head before he could finish the word. It wasn’t a hard strike, but it was fast and it was unexpected, so it startled Sam. He couldn’t help himself: “Ouch. What was that?”
“If your eyes distract you, then you will do without them. You must learn to sense the rohw. It is not a thing of the five normal senses, but of the third eye. When you sense it, you will easily be able to detect disturbances in it, such as this.” He smacked Sam on the other side of his head.
“The man who is drowning should not be counting pebbles at the bottom of the river” he said as he poked Sam’s left shoulder with his finger.
Sam tried everything he could think of. He listened, but Rindu made no sound, even though he was circling around Sam to strike him from different angles. He tried to sense the disturbance in the air, the wind of Rindu’s limbs, but could only feel it after he had been struck. As Rindu smacked, plucked, poked, and shoved Sam over and over, he began to get frustrated.
“The duck who tries to fly would do well to flap his wings in unison rather than to flail about haphazardly,” the monk chided.
Finally, exhausted, Sam stopped moving altogether. Slowing his breathing, he tolerated another jab to his midsection by Rindu’s rock hard finger and pictured himself in his mind. Seeing every detail of his own body, he imagined an aura of light surrounding himself. Then he felt the aura. He could sense it vibrating slightly, aware, on guard.
Suddenly, Sam threw his right arm out and to the side. He was surprised to feel it connect with the strike that Rindu was about to land. How had he known? Thinking back, he realized that there was a slight ripple in his aura in the exact spot where he put his arm. He had sensed Rindu’s strike and he had parried it, without consciously thinking about it.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 15