K Parker - Memory

Father Tutor was drumming his fingers on the desk, trying to annoy them (one or both, didn't matter), break their concentration,-needle them into making a mistake. Behind him, the rest of the class sat completely still-it was perfectly legitimate for Father Tutor to distract the candidates, but God help a student who sneezed or scratched an itch while the bout was in progress. Quite right, too; in the school at Deymeson, it was traditional that exactly half of the students in each grade after Grade Three moved up a class at the end of the year. The other half, those students who failed the practical, were buried in the yard behind the junior refectory, unless their families were prepared to pay the cost of shipping them home He caught his breath; was that a movement, or the different kind of stillness that comes before movement (as waves ripple out in all directions when a stone falls in water, so a movement ripples backwards and forwards in time, the perceived outcome and the perceived anticipation) or was he just imagining things? The other face, his mirror image, was watching him in exactly the same way as he was watching the other face. Had his equal-and-opposite imagined that he'd seen the anticipation of movement too? That'd be right. Combat is a mirror (precept for the day, a couple of terms back); also, combat in religion is a battle between two shadows (presumably meaning roughly the same thing, but with added mysticism).

– Which was why friendships were rare among the students at Deymeson; difficult to get attached to someone when it was quite possible-probable, even, given Father Tutor's macabre sense of humour-that you'd wind up meeting your best friend on the thin steel road, knowing that one of you wouldn't be back after the summer recess. Unfortunate; but here they both were, the very best of friends, so close it was hard to tell them apart, so close that even the draw had failed to separate them. There hadn't been time to apologise, to say No hard feelings, if somebody's got to get through over my dead body I'd rather it was you. That shouldn't have needed saying, of course, not between friends; but apparently it did, and it hadn't been.

Father Tutor yawned loudly; and that wasn't a legitimate examination tactic, that was just plain rude. Something as out of the ordinary as this, a year-end practical that lasted longer than a sneeze, you'd have thought he'd be pleased, not bored.

Maybe he'll stop the fight. No way of proving it, but he was sure the idea had crossed both their minds simultaneously; followed immediately by Maybe we can stop the fight; if we both sheaths our swords together, now He felt the impulse tug at his wrists, but he defied it. Yes, he knew his friend, he knew his friend wanted to end the fight more than anything in the world. But he knew also that his friend was thinking exactly the same thing as he was: Bloody stupid I'd look, if I put up and he doesn't; and then I'd be dead, and that bastard, that traitor who said he was my friend, he'd still be alive and through to next grade, and that'd make him better than me In religion, there is no time, there is no space, because the sword doesn't move from scabbard to flesh and it takes no time getting there. Between the impulse and the result no time, no space, therefore in religion nobody and nothing can exist.

'Very good,' Father Tutor called out, in a voice that suggested he didn't think it was very good at all. 'On the count of three, you will both step back three paces and put up your swords; and then we'd better start again from the beginning, see if we can't do better next time. One, two…'

(And both of them thought: on three the practical will be over, and we'll have to do it again; another draw, as bad as having to die twice. That gives us this little bit of time, between two and three, to get this mess cleared up.)

Just before Father Tutor could say the word, both of them moved. Both stepped forward, two circles intersecting (like the ripples from two stones thrown simultaneously into water) and once again the swords met in mid-air, at the point where the shadow joins the body, and so nothing was achieved, nothing happened 'Three,' Father Tutor said. 'Well,' he added, as they stepped back and sheathed their swords with a click, 'that was a bit of a shambles, wasn't it?'

He couldn't help it, he was shaking all over. Partly it was simply fear, the reaction to the extremes of danger and concentration. Partly though it was shame, and abhorrence; because at this moment in time there was only enough room in the world for one of them, and yet both of them were still there, illegally sharing it, like a shadow or a mirror-image being soaked up into the body that cast it. Two circles superimposed, becoming one.

That's not supposed to happen. And if it does-Not quite sure about the details, but isn't that supposed to mean something really bad is on the way, like the end of the world, Poldarn's second coming, something like that?

Maybe the same thought had just occurred to Father Tutor, because he was looking very grave all of a sudden, with possibly just a hint of why-did-it-have-to-happen-in-my-class.

'Match drawn,' said Father Tutor quietly. 'Both pass. Both through to the next grade.'

A moment when nothing happened (religion); then everybody in the building started talking at once 'You,' said a voice in his ear. 'Wake up, now.'

Bloody hell, Poldarn thought, not again. Why can't I ever get a full night's sleep?

'Fuck you,' he muttered, and opened his eyes. Banspati-no, not this time. Banspati was there, but he was standing back looking very worried and unhappy (rather like Father Tutor in the dream). The man who'd woken him up was that soldier, Brigadier Muno. A pity, Poldarn reflected bitterly, that I just told him to fuck himself.

'On your feet,' Brigadier Muno growled at him, and his big cheerful face wasn't quite as friendly as usual. 'Get your boots on and follow me.'

Not good; not good at all. Poldarn didn't know all that much about the Imperial regular army, but he had an idea he'd read or heard somewhere that the top brass don't usually come round waking you up and bringing you breakfast in bed. In the background, Banspati was glowering at him with a mixture of hatred and sympathy; you're for it this time, and thanks to you, so am I…

Typical: when you're flustered and in a hurry, your feet won't fit in your boots. Poldarn managed to get them on somehow, though they really didn't want to go; also he had pins and needles in his left foot, which really didn't help matters. Was it worth telling the brigadier he was sorry for saying 'Fuck you'; or would that only make it worse? Probably best not to say anything, he decided, knowing that whatever he did, he'd be bound to get it wrong.

Across the yard a lot of people were milling around, even though the angle of the sun told him it was ridiculously early for the day shift to be up and about, unless something was seriously wrong and he was the only man in the camp who didn't know about it. (That'd be right.) Outside the drawing office, which was apparently where they were headed, he noticed a bunch of riding horses tied up to the tethering post; unusual sight, since nobody in the foundry had a horse-even the brigadier and his staff had come by coach as far as the Virtue and footslogged the rest of the way. One very fancy horse; white, nervous, thoroughbred, with a gilded red leather saddle, worth a lot of money. Looks like we're entertaining the quality. Is that good?

Poldarn reflected on the sort of person who seemed to make good in the Empire-Tazencius, Feron Amathy-and decided no, probably not.

'In there,' said the brigadier.

Usually the drawing office was crowded-people working, people watching other people work-but not today; there was just one man, sitting on the corner of the long, broad table that Spenno and Malla Ancola used for drawing out designs. He lifted his head as Poldarn walked in, and at once Poldarn knew who he was. The last time he'd seen him had been at some army camp in the Bohec valley, where he'd had to trick and threaten a sentry into taking responsibility for the cavalry captain he'd rescued from two murderous old women who'd been looting the dead. He remembered carrying the cavalryman all the way up from the river-he'd been trampled by his own troop's horses, and both the man's legs had been broken; it had been an ordeal for both of them, but the cavalryman had been rather more stoical about it. He remembered how the poor bastard had made a point of telling him his name. Muno Silsny.