Dave Smeds - The Sorcery Within

"What happens if we fail to pass the tests?" Elenya said.

Gerat shook his head. "How can a boy not become a man? That is God's design. Thepulstrall does not create manhood; it celebrates it."

"Stranger things have happened," she said to herself.

Sometime later, Gerat asked, "Is it true that you do not have circumcision in your homeland?"

A false dusk fell as they returned to camp. Motherworld, full and swollen on the eastern horizon, held off darkness. Elenya paced off her restlessness, waiting for dinner. The tents and people beamed back the ochre and beige of the great planet, the illumination so altering appearances that she scarcely recognized Lonal as she passed by him. She started at the sound of his voice.

"Good evening," he said.

"What's good about it?" She used the High Speech, knowing that however comfortable Lonal might seem speaking it, it required effort on his part.

Unruffled, he replied in the same language. "I have heard that you will go to Shom. Congratulations."

"So I'll have my adulthood back. That's half a recovery," she said sarcastically.

Lonal pursed his lips. "I suppose I could persuade the Ah-no-ken to reconsider. You could always go through thepulstrall next year."

She decided to drop the banter. She knew Lonal could keep it up as long as she. Instead, she asked, "Am I really to participate?"

"Of course. Why shouldn't you?"

She glared and turned away. "May you be reincarnated as a sand tick," she said as she walked away. It was a powerful slur.

"Don't be angry," he said, and caught up with her.

"I thought you might be the one person here who would give me an honest answer."

"I gave the appropriate answer."

She stopped. "Is it that hard to think of me as a woman?"

"It has been decreed that you are a man. Even I am not above the law. Otherwise the matter of your gender would never have become as complicated as it is."

"So – you admit it's complicated. I had begun to think the whole tribe considered it nonexistent."

Some of Elenya's neighbors were watching. Here, deep within T'lil territory, the tents were spaced widely by Zyraii standards, but still closer than Elenya liked. She led them around her own tent, managing at least to cut off the view of Omi and Peyri.

Lonal sighed. "I can't understand someone who fails to acknowledge good fortune. Be glad that you're participating. Never mind the talking I had to do with the elders to beat down resistance to the idea. Women are not allowed at Shom – ever. But according to the decision,you must be. Some of the tribe want to use your 'manhood' as an issue to displace Toltac and myself."

"I'm sorry for any inconvenience," she cooed.

He found a date pit on the ground and picked it up. "It mystifies me. I would have thought that having your adulthood denied for four months must have been the worst insult, but you act as if you'd prefer not to have a soul."

"I happen to like being female. And I don't believe in souls. Do you?"

He squeezed the date pit. "Of course."

She smiled. "No, you don't. I can tell. You believe whatever furthers your goals."

"I believe I see why you became a warrior. No man would put up with such a wife."

She paused. It was strange how she and Lonal always ended up baiting each other. For a moment, she almost admitted that she was intrigued by a Zyraii who didn't swallow his people's gospel whole. Despite his attempts to make her obey, he himself seemed the most understanding of her urge to sway tradition.

"You're not like the others, Lonal. Why is that?"

He avoided her eyes. Had she embarrassed him? It occurred to her that a nonconformist here would be a lonely individual. It surprised her when he answered seriously, "It's my father's doing. In order that I learn the High Speech, he sent me to the cities. I used to feel it was unfair that I could not be taught the same lessons as any Zyraii boy. Now I am glad. I can see God's plan. It was done to help me fulfill my destiny."

"You have a destiny, too," she said softly. "What is it?"

"To become opsha."

"What's that?"

"The military ruler of all the Zyraii people."

The thought captured her interest. She pictured one man ruling all of the steppes, an authority over all its bickering factions. "Why haven't I heard this title before?"

"There has never been an opsha. The tribes have not been united since the sons of Cadra left their father's tent more than a thousand years ago. Many have tried. I will be the first to succeed."

His tone said he believed it. Elenya did, too, though she knew that the people had split into twenty tribes and over a hundred clans since the patriarch of Zyraii begat his fifteen boys. "That's a bold claim."

"Had I been raised as my brothers were, the thought might never have occurred to me. I could have lived exclusively among my own clan for all of my life, and have been content to be war-leader of the T'lil. But my journeys have shown me that there are possibilities beyond what has always been true before. Does that seem strange to you?"

"No. Not anymore."

He stood up straighter, facing her. "I have watched you in the drills. If you were larger, a bit older, you would be a nearly invincible fencer."

"Thank you," she said, puzzled by the shift in the conversation.

"I would like you to know that, had it been possible to defy custom, I would never have insisted on these months of lessons of you."

"I'm used to training," she said. "I've been training from the moment I left my cradle."

"It will be different, once you return from Shom. You can ride as a warrior – then you will feel what it is like to be Zyraii. A child is nothing. You will have rank. Maybe you will find that the desert is not such a terrible place. God made it hard, but that's part of the beauty of it."

His fervor attracted her, but he had missed the point again. She wasn't a Zyraii boy.

"Tell me," she said, her voice regaining some of its curtness, "when thepulstrall is over, will Tebec and I ever be allowed to go to Setan?"

"No," he said, glancing toward the east.

"That's very good," she said. "Most of your countrymen look northwest when I mention the place."

He flicked away the date pit. "What you want has been strictly denied by Toltac, and no one, myself included, will defy that edict." Elenya regretted the withdrawal of their brief camaraderie. "We can help each other, westerner, but only if you give up your fantasies. There is nothing for you in Setan."

"How are you so sure of that?"

"There is a good well, a school for the ken, and some ruins. Despite the stories they love to tell in Surudain and Nyriya, there is no hint of treasure."

"We've tried to tell you it's not treasure we're after."

"Then what is it you want?"

Elenya closed her mouth.

"You see? If your reasons for seeking it were innocent, you would tell me," Lonal said calmly. "Setan is reserved for the ken. I myself have only been there once. Unless you werehai-Zyraii, you would never be allowed near. It is not a place for warriors. In fact, all men must strip off their weapons within the boundaries of the school. I suppose you could have legitimate purposes there – if you wanted to become a priest. Is that what you're after?"

She sighed. "No."

"Then forget Setan. Only those who prove themselves to Zyraii deserve to see it."

As Elenya entered the tent, she startled Peyri. The woman almost spilled the pot of millet that she carried. She set it and its steaming contents in front of Alemar and hurried back behind the purdah, face averted. Elenya was used to it. She was neither man nor woman; to Peyri's mind that left only demons and rythni.

Alemar stared morosely at his bowl as she sat across from him. They began to eat. She still disliked the desert cuisine, but it kept them going. In fact, the aridity preserved meat, her favorite staple, over periods of time that would have rotted it in Cilendrodel.