The Blood-Rage (12) "You taught him quickly, daughter," Gravestone said slowly, as he turned to face her. She had a dazed look on her face as she said, "I didn't show him the movements again after you left. He saw me perform it once, at first-light, and remembered every move." She looked up at him. "Can you believe that? 729 movements memorized and then performed to a perfection that only the old-ones have. I spent three years when I was very young just learning the moves for the first time. What manner of being is he?" Patra touched Erendria's hair and said gently, "That's what we're trying to find out." Erendria stood, faced her mother, and said in a voice both loud and angry, "I'm a dagger-master! Yet before him I'm nothing. Give him a sword, and he could probably kill me!" "Nonsense," Patra snorted. "Anger twists your reason." Rasp reminded them, "We're wasting time. The suns are rising." "Yes, yes," Gravestone agreed. "It's time for his naming." He looked at the stranger and asked, "Are you ready? Do you remember the lok's lesson on the sequence of questions and answers involved with this ritual?" "I'm ready," came the other's calm reply. Gravestone and Patra knelt, their backs to the rising suns. The stranger before them also dropped to his knees, and the ceremony of adult becoming was started. Soon the last of the phrases were uttered. "What do you seek?" Patra asked of the stranger. "Life," he answered. "And what will you receive?" "Pain and death." "And when you die, by what name will Agon know you by?" "Darkcian of the clan of Kalt," he answered, his voice emotionless. In unison they all said, "Welcome to adulthood and the search for the perfect death, Darkcian." Gravestone was suddenly queasy as he uttered this last part. He knew that the only way to beat the blood-rage when it finally became unbearable was to seek the end, usually in battle. However, for some the perfect escape was in suicide; and for his new son, it would probably be by execution. And, much to his surprise, that turned his stomach. He then noticed that the suns were now up, bathing the stranger's face in their white and red rays. The young one's eyes reflected a strange, bright purple that make the hairs rise behind Gravestone's neck. What does his name mean? he thought uneasily. CHAPTER 12 To teach a child is a joy, for it propagates a part of yourself into a future beyond your ability to survive. Thus, it gives you a form of immorality, but only if the student passes your knowledge on to someone else. -From the Thoughts of Night Mist- Below the hill of Rasp's camp, the three males stood. Erendria sat twenty feet away from them, watching their every move, somehow excited by their grim countenance. Combat always seemed to make her feel really alive, more so than anything else she had ever experienced. In fact, her heart was pounding. "Brush that insect off your leg, student," Gravestone suddenly ordered. Now it starts, she thought and felt tightness in her breasts again. Darkcian looked down, saw the bug, and swatted it off. "One cannot stand in one spot too long on Agon," her father continued. He looked over at his old friend. "Rasp, remember that story about the warrior who committed suicide by refusing to move? He was in a blood-rage and chose that method to die. Within an hour, three kinds of insects had eaten him alive." "It's an old tale," Rasp said. "Took a lot of courage." "Or a lot of rage," her father said. Rasp nodded. Her father switched his attention once again to the young one. "Regardless, the lesson is that on Agon you must keep moving in order to stay alive. Danger stalks the stationary. On Agon life doesn't just sneak up on things, it explodes around them. The insects grow the quickest during Fleeing-Winter. So watch out for them; they're hungry after surviving the cold." "Particularly watch out for the small ones that march in the millions," added the older warrior. Gravestone nodded and said to the memory-lost one, "Enough about the dangers from non-rationals, on to the way we deal with humans. You've been named and declared a warrior. Now we must make you into one." "The way of the sword," Rasp said with a gleam in his eye. The way of the dagger is more deadly, Erendria thought. Gravestone agreed with Rasp. "Yes. The sword teaches all: pain, endurance, courage, love, hate." He laughed and looked at his old friend. "Do you wish to start it?" "You already know my answer to that." The old warrior drew his blade, his attention now on the newly named Darkcian. "You saw the way I made my weapon naked?" he asked the memory-lost one. Darkcian nodded. "Draw yours in the same way," he ordered. Erendria watched carefully as Darkcian reach up with his right hand and grasped the handle of the sword that was in a scabbard strapped to his back. He pulled the blade about half way out before rotating the weapon until it was horizontal. At this point, pulling straight ahead until the blade became fully exposed completed the draw. As the tip cleared the scabbard, the blade arced first up and then down by a further rotation of his wrist. The weapon's movement stopped when the tip pointed toward the ground, as was Rasp's. "Your eyes watch closely and miss nothing, eh, warrior?" Rasp commented. "And you never forget, do you?" "I understand what forget means, but I have never experienced it since I came in from the dark." "Dark? What does that word mean to you?" "Death." Rasp seemed to ponder that for a time before replying, "Philosophically, I like the definition. From nothing we came, to nothing we go. Death to death. The boundary between is life." The amiable look suddenly disappeared from his square face. "Look at the blade of your sword," he ordered. "What do you see?" The younger man raised his sword until the blade rested on his left hand. "I see my reflection," he said. "No, it's more than that. You see the light bent back into your eyes, modified by the steel of the blade. What you really see in the sword is your face distorted by an instrument of battle. It's your true soul you see. Your warrior soul." Yes! Yes! Erendria shouted silently. Death from steel! She had to fight to keep from touching her breasts. Darkcian just managed to say, "What?" before the old warrior swung his sword up in an arc toward the younger man's head. Darkcian raised his arm to block the blade and received a painful blow from the flat side of the weapon. "Your arm would have been cut off if I hadn't turned my blade. You block with your sword, idiot!" exclaimed the old warrior. Rasp shouldn't have turned his blade, Erendria thought. "I don't know the rules," Darkcian countered. "How can I respond correctly if I don't know the rules?" "Pain will be your teacher," replied the other and began to flail away at Darkcian with the flat of his blade, beating him about the face, shoulders, and arms. Darkcian's ability to protect himself was at first futile, pathetic even in Erendria's eyes. Still, the young stranger's ability increased to a slight degree as the morning passed. In this at least, both older warriors seemed to be immensely pleased. They stopped to eat when the suns had reached zenith. Rasp walked away from the practice area with Gravestone, leaving the beaten stranger standing alone with his pain and with what appeared to be a pleased Erendria. Rasp's arms felt as though he was walking on a five-g planet; they were heavy and tired. He said, "It has been a long time since I've sword dueled, even in practice, for five hours, my friend." "Tired?" Gravestone asked. "By the blood of my enemies, I can hardly lift my arms." "There's more left in the young one yet. I'll beat down his arms this afternoon." Rasp grunted. "He learns fast, unbelievably fast. Have you noticed that he never makes the same mistake twice?" "I noticed and it disturbs me," Gravestone answered, clenching and unclenching his fists as they walked up to the cooking fire and stopped. He looked out over the grass plains until his eyes met the horizon, a contrast of green earth and blue sky. "What disturbs me more is his face." Rasp nodded. "It shows nothing. Already he knows how to hide his thoughts. A true Agonian, this one." "Exactly. Even when he's been badly hurt and thus in great pain, there's no change in his expression. I don't think he feels with his mind. His body knows pain, but his mind knows no emotion; or at least, it doesn't allow it to be shown." Rasp wondered: Could that be possible? No emotion? Aloud he said, "We can give him knowledge but not a soul. That will came with time." "Will it?" Rasp also searched the horizon. "It had better. There will be no glory in killing a machine." They called to Darkcian to eat with them. Later, when all had had their fill, they went back to the practice area. Erendria watched again as Gravestone faced Darkcian. Her father asked, "Ready?" "Ready," answered the other, his face calm. Gravestone reached up quickly and drew his sword. The wind whistled as the blade became naked and sliced downward to point at the ground. Darkcian's draw was only a fraction of a second later and was performed perfectly. It made Erendria wince. "Listen closely, student," Gravestone ordered. "When you fight someone, you attack with all your strength and never stop until your enemy is dead. There's no point or gain in fighting an enemy with anything less than your maximum effort. If someone is going to kill you, even if you believe you stand no chance against him, make him work for it, never surrender to it, never give that kind of satisfaction to your destroyer. There's nothing worse that a warrior of Agon can do than to let their death be easily won. Do you understand what I'm saying?" "I understand," came the memory-lost one's dull answer. "I am guessing you call that honor." "Yes. And whether you are victorious or not, your attack must be unrelenting. You must never stop. Each blow from your sword must be followed immediately by another and another. If you slack off the attack, your opponent is given the chance to gain the initiative, to turn his retreat into an offense. Never give him that chance. Kill, kill, and kill. You must destroy your heart of softness. In its place you must create a heart-of- sharp-steel. For this is the way to the true warrior-mind." The clash of swords did not quit until Friosan and Ardent had disappeared below the anti-spinward horizon. Erendria saw that the resulting suns-set bathed the warriors in a magnificent glow of red, making the sweat glisten on their bare torsos as they stood in utter exhaustion, their shoulders bent with the effect of their fatigue. Gravestone's eyes looked up from a lowered head to see his opponent of the last seven hours. "Until the next day, warrior," he said with a hoarse voice.
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