K Parker - Shadow

While he was still figuring out what was going on, his legs and arms were busy; he discovered that he'd jumped back the full radius of his circle and was standing in a position that came instinctively-feet a shoulder's width apart and at right angles, heel to heel; body chest on, with the arms extended equally, outstretched but the elbows slightly bent, the pommel of the sword level with his navel; it came as naturally as breathing, and suddenly he felt secure, in control, powerful, like a captain on the bridge of his ship. It had taken no longer than a single heartbeat. His circle blazed and flowed around him like a burning moat, like the invisible walls of Deymeson, and quite suddenly he knew he was home…

The attack came in on his left side, at sixty degrees to his sword blade. He could feel the violence of it before his circle was even breached. His left foot went back and behind his right heel, and at the moment when his enemy had to be raising his arms for the cut he launched his own sword at the place where the other man's hands must inevitably be (the best defence is no defence; the best attack is no attack… maxims that had always been there in his mind, asleep or silent) and felt the curve of the tip, the optimum cutting point, biting into the soft iron of a hilt. The right idea, then, but he'd missed by perhaps as much as an inch; by the time he realised that, he'd already wheeled his circle through ninety degrees to the right, reading everything there was to know about his invisible enemy from that one instant of contact. He knew that he was fighting someone so close to him in skill and experience that he might as well be fighting against himself; each could read the other's mind as clearly as his own thoughts, and nothing he or the other man could do would surprise or deceive the other. It was as if the darkness in the room was a mirror, and he was facing up to his reflection.

('…When will I know that I've learned the draw?'

'When you can outdraw your reflection in a mirror.'

'But that's impossible.'

'If you really believe that, it's not the end of the world. You're still young enough to get indentures with a clerk, or learn how to mend saucepans.')

A cut was on its way, slanting in from the right, aimed at the point where the collarbone faded into the shoulder. He stepped forward, knowing exactly where the point of the curve would pass, and as its slipstream cooled his cheek he swung low for the knees, bracing himself for the shock that would travel up the blade as the other man parried with the flat. He used it to spring his sword up, racing the other man to see who could get there first as he turned his wrist for an upwards flick at the underside of the jaw. The other man stepped out of the way, of course, and he gave ground himself to avoid the riposte, a side-cut that would have sheared through his hip into his spine if he'd been there to receive it. He was like a man reciting a poem he'd learned by heart so long ago that the words no longer mean anything, and as his body made each inevitable movement his mind began to wander, drifting into a state between sleep and waking, the place where the crows roosted.

'Stop,' said a voice in the dark. He stopped, knowing he could trust the voice implicitly. 'Is there a lamp or a candle in here?'

Before he could reply Copis grunted and woke up. 'Who's that?' she mumbled, in a voice still saturated with sleep.

'It's all right,' Poldarn replied. The other man's voice had only confirmed his position; Poldarn already knew exactly where he was. Nevertheless, by speaking the other man had pinpointed his location, an act of truce as clear and eloquent as dropping his sword on the floor. The least Poldarn could do was reciprocate by answering. Besides, if Copis was awake, it changed the whole nature of the fight. If she chose to stand up and wander about, she stood a better than average chance of getting in the way and being cut in half. 'Who are you?' he asked.

For some reason the other man laughed. 'I could ask you the same question,' he said. 'Is there a lamp or a candle? We'll probably understand each other better if we can throw some light on the subject.'

'No,' Poldarn replied. 'At least, I don't remember seeing anything like that.'

'Pity.' Poldarn heard the click of a sword being returned to its scabbard. 'Still, it's not essential. You'll just have to use your imagination.'

'Look,' Copis interrupted, 'who the hell are you, and what are you doing in our room?'

'Listen to me.' The voice had changed a little. 'You don't know who you are, do you?'

'No,' Poldarn admitted. 'I lost my memory a while ago-'

'When you woke up beside the river, after a battle. Yes, I know all that. I'm a little vague about what you've been up to since, but I-we know pretty well everything about you up to that point. Would you like me to tell you?'

Poldarn hesitated two, perhaps three heartbeats before answering. 'Yes,' he said.

'Then I'll tell you. But first-'

'No. Now.'

'First,' the voice said emphatically, 'I've got to warn you. Tomorrow morning, some senior officers of the order will send for you and have you taken up to the chapterhouse. There they'll tell you all about yourself, in great and very plausible detail. They'll tell you that your name is Brother Stellico, that you're a renegade monk of this order and therefore-technically-an outlaw already sentenced to death; that before you left the order, you were a father tutor-that's a very high rank indeed-and the senior deacon of applied religion, which is our term for swordfighting. According to what they'll tell you, I was your immediate subordinate and your pupil, and you taught me everything I know about the subject.' He paused. 'None of this is true,' he said.

'Oh,' Poldarn said.

The voice laughed softly. 'It's all entirely possible, of course,' he went on. 'And it fits everything you'll have learned about yourself. They'll go on to offer you amnesty and an impressive-sounding title and privileges, provided you stay here for the time being and send away your friend here-Copis, isn't it? And before that, you were called Xipho Dorunoxy, when you worked in the brothel in Josequin. That's not your real name, of course.'

He'd pronounced Xipho Dorunoxy perfectly, or as well as Copis had, at the very least. 'How clever of you,' Copis said. 'I won't ask how you know.'

'Thank you,' the voice replied. 'We prefer not to explain how we come by our information. It's not a dreadful dark secret, quite the opposite, in fact, all perfectly straightforward and unimpressive. Which is why we don't explain; it ruins the mystique.'

Poldarn breathed in slowly. 'Why would they want to tell me all these lies?' he said.

'Let me tell you who you really are,' the voice said reasonably, 'and you should be able to work it out for yourself. You'll also see why, even though I have every reason to hate you and see you come to harm, I couldn't stand by and watch them do this to you. I may not respect you, but I respect our order; if we stoop to acts of pure malice, such as what they have planned for you, we stand to lose everything we are.'

'All right,' Poldarn said. 'Now, tell me who I really am.'

They dragged him, bleeding and dizzy, from the cart to the tent flap (and as his feet trailed behind him, each bump and jolt jarring the broken bone, flooding his body and mind with pain, two crows got up out of a dead spruce tree and flew away). The sentry outside the tent blocked their way with his spear.

'What's the hurry?' he asked suspiciously. 'And what's that?'

'Top priority is what it is,' snapped the trooper on his left. 'Urgent. You know what urgent means?'

'It's all right.' The voice came from inside the tent. 'Let them through, I'm expecting them.' A hand pulled back the tent flap, and they hauled him through and lowered him to the ground like a sack of grain, gently enough to stop him splitting open, but beyond that, not too bothered.