Brian Staveley - The Emperor's blades

“He is expecting you,” Heng continued, something like pity tingeing his voice. “I promised to send you to his cell as soon as you arrived.”

Kaden spared a glance over his shoulder for the table where his friends sat, slurping down their stew and enjoying the few unstructured minutes of conversation that were allowed them each day.

“Now,” Heng said, breaking into his thoughts.

The walk from the refectory to the dormitory was not far-a hundred paces across the square, then up a short path between two lines of stunted junipers. Kaden covered the distance quickly, eager to be out of the wind, and pushed open the heavy wooden door. All the monks, even Scial Nin, the abbot, slept in identical chambers opening off the long, central hallway. The cells were small, barely large enough to fit a pallet, a rough woven mat, and a couple of shelves, but then, the Shin spent most of their time outdoors, in the workshops, or in meditation.

Inside the building and out of the slicing wind, Kaden slowed, readying himself for the encounter. It was hard to know what to expect-some masters liked to test a student immediately; some preferred to wait and watch, judging the aptitudes and weaknesses of the younger monk before deciding on a course of instruction.

He’s just another new master, Kaden told himself. Heng was new a year ago, and you got used to him .

And yet, something about the situation felt odd, unsettling. First the slaughtered goat, then this unexpected transfer when he should have been seated on a long bench with a steaming bowl in front of him, arguing with Akiil and the rest of the acolytes.…

He filled his lungs slowly, then emptied them. Worry was doing no good.

Live now, he told himself, rehearsing one of the standard Shin aphorisms. The future is a dream. And yet, a part of his thoughts-a voice that refused to be stilled or settled-reminded him that not all dreams were pleasant, that sometimes, no matter how one thrashed or turned, it was impossible to awake.

Rampuri Tan sat on the floor inside his small cell, his back to the door, a broad sheet of blank parchment spread on the flagstones before him. He held a brush in his left hand, but however long he had been sitting, had not yet dipped it into the saucer of black ink at his side.

“Enter,” the man said, beckoning with his free hand without turning toward the door.

Kaden crossed the threshold, then paused. The first few moments with a new umial could set the tone for the entire relationship. Most of the monks wanted to make an impression on their pupils early, and Kaden wasn’t eager to earn himself some grueling penance because of a careless misstep or lapse in judgment. Tan, however, seemed content to contemplate his blank page in silence, and so Kaden schooled himself to patience, attending to his strange new master.

It wasn’t hard to see where the novices had come up with the idea that the older monk had fought in the arena. Though well into his fifth decade, Tan was built like a boulder, thick in the shoulders and neck, and powerfully muscled. Furrowed scars, pale against his darker skin, ran through the stubble of his scalp, as though some clawed beast had raked at his head again and again, slicing the flesh right down to the skull. Whatever inflicted the wounds, they must have been excruciating. Kaden’s mind jumped back to the carcass of the goat, and he shivered.

“You found the animal that Heng sent you for,” the older monk began abruptly. It was not a question, and for a moment Kaden hesitated.

“Yes,” he said finally.

“Have you returned it to its flock?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It had been killed. Savagely killed.”

Tan lowered the brush, rose fluidly to his feet, and turned to face his pupil for the first time. He was tall, almost as tall as Kaden, and suddenly it felt as though there was very little space in the small cell. His eyes, dark and hard as filed nails, fixed Kaden to the spot. Back in Annur, there were men from western Eridroa and the far south, animal handlers, who could bend bears and jaguars to their will, all with the power of their gaze. Kaden felt like one of those creatures now, and it was with an effort that he continued to meet the eyes of his new umial.

“Crag cat?” the older monk asked.

Kaden shook his head. “Something severed its neck-hacked straight through. Then consumed the brain.”

Tan considered him, then gestured to the brush, bowl, and parchment lying on the floor. “Paint it.”

Kaden took his seat with some relief. Whatever surprises were in store for him under Tan’s tutelage, at least the older monk shared some habits with Heng-if he heard about something unusual, he wanted an image. Well, that was easy enough. Kaden took two breaths, composed his thoughts, then summoned the saama’an. The sight filled his mind in all its detail-the sopping hair, the gobbets of hanging flesh, the empty bowl of the skull cast aside like broken crockery. He dipped the tip of the brush into the bowl and began to paint.

The work went quickly-his study with the monks had provided plenty of time to hone his craft-and when he was finished, he set down the brush. The painting on the parchment could have been the image of his mind reflected in a pool of still water.

Silence filled the room behind him, silence huge and heavy as stone. Kaden was tempted to turn around, but he had been instructed to sit and to paint, nothing else, and so, the painting finished, he sat.

“This is what you saw?” Tan asked at last.

Kaden nodded.

“And you had the presence of mind to remain for the saama’an. ”

Satisfaction swelled in Kaden. Maybe training under Tan wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Anything else?” the monk asked.

“Nothing else.”

The lash came down so hard and unexpectedly, Kaden bit into his tongue. Pain screamed across his back in a bright, bold line as his mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood. He started to reach back, to block the next blow, then forced the instinct down. Tan was his umial now, and it was the man’s prerogative to dole out penance and punishment as he saw fit. The reason for the sudden assault remained a mystery, but Kaden knew how to deal with a whipping.

Eight years among the Shin had taught him that pain was far too general a term for the multitude of sensations it purported to describe. He had learned the brutal ache of feet submerged too long in icy water and the furious stinging and itching of those same feet as they warmed. He had studied the deep reluctant soreness of muscles worked past exhaustion and the blossoms of agony that bloomed the next day as he kneaded the tender flesh under his thumbs. There was the quick, bright pain of a clean wound after the knife slipped and the low, drumming throb of the headache after fasting for a week. The Shin were great believers in pain. It was a reminder, they said, of how tightly we are bound to our own flesh. A reminder of failure.

“Finish the painting,” Tan said.

Kaden called the saama’an back to mind, then compared it with the parchment before him. He had transferred the details faithfully.

“It is finished,” he replied reluctantly.

The lash came down again, although this time he was prepared. His mind absorbed the shock as his body swayed slightly with the blow.

“Finish the painting,” Tan said again.

Kaden hesitated. Asking questions of one’s umial was usually a fast route to penance, but since he was being beaten already, a little more clarity couldn’t hurt.

“Is this a test?” he asked tentatively. The monks created all sorts of tests for their pupils, trials in which the novices and acolytes attempted to prove their understanding and competence.