537 - The Water-Lion Climbs into Hayel, Unknowing

One of the people in these formal black and white robes did a censing at this point, trailing the delicate scented smoke through the room in circles and whorls and curliques that would have suited the taste of the most ornate-craving person.

As it tickled my nose and the distant murmur of voices... Chevenga’s? The black and white wearing elders? I couldn’t tell. As it tickled my nose I realized that my mind had been hopping from frivolous thought to flighty idea for one reason; to avoid feeling how serious this was.

It was what Chevenga had to do. And he looked as though it was a fate so close to dying it was the toss of an ankarye which he would more happily do. Would he choose otherwise? Would Surya let him? This, for all that it had none of the trappings of what I understood as serious ritual, was as possibly deadly as the Ten Tens. Kall had said things about it that I had just not applied my concentrated attention to. I took a deep breath. I’d been afraid to see it. I’d been afraid to go so deep.

Some part of me whined that I was only nineteen. I told that part to shut up and began breathing deep, trying to sit down more groundedly, more as if I were meditating, to try and prepare myself to be a good witness for this thing... this ritual, and that was when Chevenga came into the gathering room, guided from the room where they kept their sacred ‘Sword of Saint Mother’.

The old sword master, Azaila, whispered a word in Chevenga’s ear and he took off Chirel and gave it to him. Was that it? But the old man slung it on over his own shoulder, reverently enough and turned to us all and raised his voice so every corner of the room was filled by it.

“First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e comes today, to go asa kraiya, to cease being a warrior. By his free will, to undergo the ceremony by which one lays down the sword, by which one relinquishes the obligations, and the privileges, of a warrior. To this we are joined together to bear witness.”

The two of them stood next to an armour stand and Azaila touched Chevenga’s helmet and received it from him as he said. “By his own word, Virani-e comes to this in certainty that it is his choice.”

Both Chevenga’s greaves came off to two more statements. 

“He chooses this in full knowledge of its meaning to himself.” And “He chooses this in reasonable knowledge of its meaning to others.”

Every time the war master touched another piece of Chevenga’s armoured shell and he removed it, his hands moved more and more deliberately. It was like watching a sea creature removing its own shell hide, exposing the delicate and tender self underneath.

“He chooses this without intention to regret it.” Chevenga himself said, and had said to me more than once. ‘Do nothing you regret. Regret nothing you do.’

“He chooses this in acceptance that many will not understand.” By this point Chevenga’s hands were shaking.

“He chooses this knowing that he will become one of those who will not fight and so much be protected by those who do.” That was for the breastplate and Chevenga gasped as if drowning, his eyes clenched shut as he moved. Sweat stood out on his face. All around me I could feel the intensity of us all watching. Kall was matching breathing with Chevenga as if he could help him. Water welled up in my eyes. He was doing it. He was managing to open himself up, to emerge from the shell of war, bare to a world that had taught him it was both deadly and dangerous.

He was willing to make himself so open to the world that had cut into his soul hard enough, nearly, to destroy him. He had to crack himself open and I suddenly had the image of a water-lion forcing itself out of the depths of the Arkan Lake or river where it had lived and breathed safely, into a harsh alien sunlight, Muunas’s gaze drying and cracking its skin, its shell, its life.

We were in a safe, comforting space so that he could even bear to attempt this. The water-lion could not know that beneath the mud and steel coloured carapace soft, vulnerable, fiery wings waited to unfurl. What kind of metaphoric fiery wings were those who were asa kraiya capable of? I was not enough a warrior, to ever find out. I managed not to let my tears spill for his struggle, and told myself that – like a Yeoli – I would be most with him to watch, to witness his struggles out of his old life.

Azaila whispered more encouragement to him. At least I thought it was encouragement. Perhaps it was instruction. But Chevenga began to sob. I was reminded of my new half-sister. Didn’t all the newly born weep?

“He chooses it knowing that it means he will have to refuse if he is called upon to help defend Yeola-e,” Azaila said, relentlessly, even as Chevenga wept and knelt to remove his own boots. I could see the tiny wet circles upon the floor, swept aside as he rose, barefoot. The water-lion dragged himself out of the salvation of water, into what it must see as Hayel, instead of Selestialis. For a water creature the air was not deliverance or escape.

“He chooses it by the urgings of the God-in-Him.” Chevenga, emerging from his armour was as wet as if he were truly a water-lion newly emerged, frozen, claws clinging doggedly to the alien dryness.

“He chooses it for the reason that it is his wish.” Azaila reached out and touched Chevenga’s wristlets as he said this, dropped his hands and waited.

Chevenga was no longer weeping, though the tears stood on his face, unwiped. He shuddered all over and seized control of himself. The wristlets that had saved his life so many times in the Mezem and on the battlefield, the wristlets that were the mark and sigil of a Yeoli warrior. The wristlets he had earned, by sending enemies of Yeola-e to whatever afterlife they envisioned. They might as well be tattooed on in bloody ink around his wrists.

His teeth chattered as if he were icy cold in this room that was almost as warm as Arko, but even as he gazed through and past us all, to somewhere else, to some other realm of spirit or mind, his hands moved and he gently, almost delicately, removed first his shield-hand wristlet, then his sword-hand wristlet and laid them softly in Azaila’s knobby old bare hands.

536 - Possessing a Wealth of Years

His speech was wonderful.  I recommend any Arkan read it in either Sinimas Menden’s or Kirinas Ferztainas’s translation.  Once he finished, we – all of us, foreigners, family, everyone who would witness his private ceremony – went in a clutch together up to the School of the Sword.  He looked as though he was walking injured.  He hadn’t put helmet on again and he was sweating over pale, with his cheeks flushed stark red.  I was amazed he was on his feet and moving by now.

He paused at the waterfall and Surya put a hand on his shoulder.  I listened to the thunder of the water rather than what they were saying, though I could have heard if I strained.  It wouldn’t have been polite, even though I was deadly curious.  This ‘going asa kraiya’ seemed to be a difficult and deadly thing, though considering the alternative for him, which was dying young, it was a good trade.

Kall stopped him at this gate that looked old, even though it couldn’t be, since we’d burned the building down in the occupation.  They’d built it again since, and planted a new garden around it.  I hadn’t paid much attention to the building when I was here, posing as a scholar, though Gannara had.

We were all shown into a large room inside that seemed cool and cavernous.  Even though the walls were hung with wide white ribbons with their circle symbol, it felt dark and mysterious.  Everyone settled along one side and I realized why.  I was used to ceremony done in square rooms full of tall, rectangular windows, perfectly aligned, not in a curving room that reminded me of the halls under the mountain, with small windows.

“He’ll be some time,” Kall said to me and Laisa.  “His ceremony, I’m told, starts right at the gate.”

“I’m wondering if being a warrior is such a good thing,” Laisa said.  “If it is so hard to release.”

Kall nodded.  “It is.  Sukala, one of my teachers here – you saw her just at the gate -- told me that every warrior, as every solas, has an asa kraiya ceremony as a possibility waiting for them.  And every one as different as they are different as warriors.”

“Both the war master... Azaila is it? And that woman, Sukala – I’ve heard you talk about her before – they’re um, possessing of a wealth of years.”

He laughed.  “Like mountains.  You still wouldn’t want to, anger either a Yeoli war-master, or a mountain, enough to fight.  They’d be either compassionate or indifferent about it, but they’d snap you out of the willingness to fight very quickly.”

“I couldn’t help overhearing,” the crown prince of Tor Ench put in.  “Why would a teacher of arms want to stop someone fighting?”

“Fighting them, certainly,” I said.  “It is nice to meet you, Crown Prince.”

“And I am pleased to meet you at last, Spark of the Sun’s Ray Elect.”  He looks like the kind of person who needs the occasional illicit pipe of Arkanherb.  Maybe later, when we can be less formal.

“Fighting at all,” Kallijas said, nodding at Reknarja.

That just sounded odd. What would have happened to 2^nd Amitzas if faced with either of the elegant old Yeolis.  He probably would have busted himself trying to break them, like hurling himself at a cliff face till he broke. 

I had met Reknarja and the Lakan Princess earlier, but it was completely superficial.  I looked forward to meeting with them both after Chevenga was sequestered on that special mystical little island.

535 - The Scars Upon Your Soul

It took a little time to get him out of the crowd afterward and geared up for his own aska kraiya speech, and the crowd took some time to settle.

When Chevenga stood up to make his address Kallijas was at his elbow and Che nodded at him and waved him back.

“My People, Whom I love…”  is how he started.  There are multiple accounts written of this famous address, but what I paid most attention to was what he said about the conquest of Arko, of course.

“Every Yeoli knows all too well what Kurkas and Arko did to us in the war against us. We know how many died, we know how many were tortured or maimed, and how severely; we know how many were kidnapped, we know how much property was stolen. We know the breadth and the depth of our grief and our pain, and how it has changed us.

What we are less aware of is how our fear, our anger and our fighting against Arko has changed us. To be fearful and enraged was natural, and fighting was necessary, but we undertook it at a price—that we would accustom ourselves more towards the ways of war, and away from the ways of peace. The clearest sign of that change we showed the way we often do, by a vote, which history will always know. We made ourselves into what we have never been before—conquerors.”

He is thinking about this in detail... more than I have really.  The Yeolis certainly are listening intently.  All of us are.  This is important to everyone listening. This is important not only to Yeolis but to foreigners.

“First, I am not denying or lessening my own part in our decision to conquer, though I maintain still, and will to my dying breath, that it was improper for me to have been asked. Nonetheless I was, and I spoke chalk to it because it was my preference, and I don’t pretend it wasn’t.

Second, I am not saying even that it was a wrong choice. There are many reasons that can be reasonably argued, that ultimately it was best not only for Yeola-e but for the world and even for Arko itself, chief of which are the removal of Kurkas from the Crystal Throne, and the transformation of Arko into a state ruled by its people through the vote.

But nonetheless the invasion was most certainly the mark of a change in us, brought about by anger and fear, which had their roots, of course, in the pain we suffered. I do not, I cannot, castigate any Yeoli for that, because it was natural, and I think that most peoples in the world in the same position would have done the same.

Nonetheless, as we know in our hearts, where anger and fear rule, love and peace are driven out.”

Yes, in war, love and peace are indeed driven out.  My sire would have laughed hard at that.  ‘Of course my boy! There is no place for anything but death and the best orgasmic spasm in war.’ That is what he would have said.

He cited several Yeoli philosophical texts and poems talking about what war does to people. 

“Second Kilalere knew what we still know, that in fear we feel helpless and so forget that we choose everything, and so we lose our ability to choose, which is by far the worst of any loss of freedom.

Now it is the same for us, after the Arkan occupation and after the Arkan war, as it was in her time; and yet we went even beyond that, in becoming the aggressors for the first time in our history.

When I look back, again, I see it most clearly in myself. I do not regret invading, but I will always regret, with the most bitter remorse, that I allowed the sack of Arko, that I gave free reign to Yeolis to kill and rape and torture Arkans. And I know that error came out of my own pain, out of the change that Arko had wrought in me personally.”

Oh Ten, yes.  It’s not just nations.  It’s individuals.  And you wear on your skin the mark of Arko, Second Amitza’s initials.  And the mark on your spirit of my father, since he didn’t care to leave such crude marks, but rather the scars upon your soul.

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My thanks to Karen for the parts of the asa kraiya address.  To read the whole thing see http://chevenga.com/node/244
  

Author's Note

I will have something later tonight...

534 - You have to Breathe Sometime, Chevenga!

He blinked, looking non-plussed.  What did he expect?  Of course, the greater part of the ceremony would be his asa kraiya address, rather than his response to this genteelly despised and reluctantly received award.

He thanked everyone he thought should be thanked and answered the jibes from the crowd when they disavowed their parts.  “I could have done nothing without you.” The cheers and catcalls for that one echoed all over the square.  “Everyone who fought along with me, down to the squires, deserves this as much as I do. My army was my power and my glory.”

Some leather lunged individual, I couldn’t tell if they were male or female bellowed out “We were a dispirited motley bunch, without you!” Not only did that one get cheered, the generals and dignitaries on the platform were solemnly signing chalk.

He expressed how honoured he was.  Especially since they had to practically drive a fork through your foot to hold you pinned in place to receive this, I thought.  “I don’t know what else to say,” he said at last. “I didn’t do it for this. I was only doing what I had to do, as semanakraseye and chakrachaseye. I… can’t think of anything else to say at all that doesn’t sound… gruesomely self-serving to my own ears. I can’t… I’m sorry.” That drew another cheer.

Reknarja, standing off to one side spoke out in his barrel echoing voice, “You deserve a bit more lauding!” That made Chevenga blush all over again and he hid it by coming down to the square to press hands and receive hugs and kisses which were appreciated much more than the piece of fancy crystal on a ribbon.

Yeolis bellowed pieces of their stories at him as they clasped him to their breasts and he grew red and pale by turns, returning them.  He stopped to let us foreigners… even us Arkans congratulate him, with taps of fan and comb and I said to myself – throw propriety to the wind – and hugged the man, though not as heartily as Kallijas did.  Sera Si Rusa… Laisa... smiled at him and tapped her fan on his shoulder, very daringly, but then she’d sparred with the man as well as with Kallijas.

He finally tore himself away from the crowd, from reaching hands for one last touch, one more pat on the back, and went up to the stand once more, to begin the public part of his asa kraiya ceremony.  The government officials excused themselves as he began gearing up, Skorsas having had his armour brought down for the occasion, and an old, old man in ancient Yeoli armour stood up.  I gathered it was Chevenga’s war master.

He explained that it was customary for a warrior undergoing the journey to put down the sword to have a friend recount their careers for all the world to hear.  He called Kallijas forward, to a surf murmur from the crowd.

Chevenga had checked an instant when the old man had said this, calling Kall up front, and just stared for a moment, totally surprised.  I saw Kall surreptitiously stuff the worn, scribbled on piece of paper in one gauntlet and step forward, breathing as hard as if he were going into one of his famous duels.

“We have just heard one of the great generals of your country recount the exploits of your semanakraseye  in detail for the Arkan war.  His career starts much earlier, of course, the first time he ever raised a sword in a true fight, he was but a child, a boy on a month away on the Lakan border…”

I thought Chevenga was going to faint all over again.  He was looking out over Kallijas’s head while he recounted daring deeds, including the assassination of Inkrajen, the opening of Kantila’s gate and other Lakan war successes.

“It was the Lakan war that set Chevenga’s feet on the road to greatness as a warrior.  Whatever he had learned or studied before, it was the forge of that war that set his feet on that road.  It was that war that had other countries sit up and begin to take notice of this young man.”

I wonder if that particular hand twitch was him stopping it from flying up over his face.  He’s hearing some of it.

“… because of his gift, because of his skill, because of his brilliance…”  Chevenga you must breathe sometime.

“… as an example of his dedication to the art of the warrior –“ he interrupted himself.  “Chevenga, let us show them.”

Chevenga blinked and kind of looked puzzled.  “Take off your cape and come do a single pass with me up here.”  Kallijas was smiling and as Chevenga hesitated, leaned forward and said something quietly in his ear, even as people in the crowd began exhorting Chevenga to demonstrate  the move Kallijas had been talking about.

He did take his cape off and Kall called for him to come in and foot-swept him.  Of course, ever since Riji had put him on his back in the ring he’d worked like a fiend to learn to use the momentum and do a spin and land upon his feet once more.  I’d seen some of those beads of learning, with Koree, when he’d eaten the dust of the Mezem training ground over and over and over again until he learned.  It had taken days, even eight-days, before he could take a footsweep and turn it into an advantage, a surprise.

The crowd roared as he landed, in stance.  He said something to Kallijas, who shrugged it off.  A chant was begun from the lake side of the crowd.  “Do it AGAIN!”

He drew himself up and bellowed at them, “I won’t say what I want to, it would be rude, but NO, I WILL NOT DO IT AGAIN!”

Clearly he wanted to call them kevyalin kyash eaters, but was too polite.

533 - Speech, Ch'venga! Speech!

The chorus was unearthly.  I was continually astonished at what the Yeola-e two-voiced singers could do, not only alone, but in chorus and with a chorus of single voiced singers.  Perhaps I would ask Assembly to send some to Arko, if they pleased to perform, or perhaps some korashun would wish to pay their way in hopes of acquiring the stadium revenues. Next to me, Serina Si Rusa was moved to tears and hid them behind her swan’s down fan.

It was a pleasant fall day, apparently the first snow having melted almost completely, since their Warrior Games.  We would have to travel back to Arko keeping the weather carefully in mind, once this important ceremony was over.

Chevenga looked pale as if he were about to faint, even as there was this wild air acrobatics show by a hundred of wings over Terera Square.  Then the woman General, Emao-e, began listing Chevenga’s career and she told all of us of every award he would have received if he had been getting instead of giving them out.

He truly tried not to listen, or attend, but caught enough of what she said for the apples of his cheeks to wax and wane from red to pink to pale and back again.

I made a note to myself to do some research about all the various Yeoli awards possible, along with the ones she mentioned.  Of course Chevenga wouldn’t think to award himself anything.  If Surya had to convince him he deserved to live, he certainly wasn’t going to give himself any kind of award for anything more minor.  They sounded every bit as intriguing as a Ray of Gold with Arrow Cluster given for action saving many, or A Shadowed Heart, which was given only posthumously.  Every honour, every medallion marking an action, every citation, hides a story, or a multitude of stories.

When the adakri, the holder of the crystal or the one who held order over the whole mad circus, held up the Award that the Assembly of Yeola-e had come up with for Chevenga, I looked at him and wondered if Kall had put a hand on his back to keep him from keeling over backwards, disappearing into the crowd of dignitaries on the platform. 

The adakri held up the award in its box, to catch the sun. “Each part of the award has a specific meaning," she said.  "Like the award it is based on, we chose a crystal circle to mimic, in miniature, the Circle of Yeola-e, the crystal state of ‘rya-kya’-  that ‘everything/nothing’ thing they go on about – The centre is the ruby to symbolize the living beating heart of the country, crossed by the crystal sword upright, in defense of that centre in time of war.  We chose a red ribbon to symbolize the blood shed and the pain borne for those actions of defense.”  She raised it out of its box and displayed it, swinging from her raised hands, winking as it swung in the wind off the mountains.

We were close enough, even below, that I could see Chevenga swallow before he bent his head to have the medallion arranged on his chest by the adakri.  She settled it with a pat like a housewife smoothing bedlinens.  I had to smile.  There, Cheng.  Take that and throw it back at them, I dare you.  This is part of the tidying up after the war.  It’s only been five years.

Someone behind us began bellowing ‘Speech!  Talk to us, Chevenga!  Speech!” 

_______________

This was yesterday's post, that I couldn't put up because I think the thunderstorms in Tulsa knocked out our internet.  I will do today's post later.

532 - Is it Always this Cold?

The wind off the mountains might be considered cool and brisk to the Yeolis all around us.  Kallijas, up on the platform didn’t seem affected but it seemed much colder to me than I remembered.  Laisa was bundled in a gold fur cloak that Kallijas had insisted she bring, right next to me.

I offered her my elbow and she took it.  Not that she needed support against all the people around us.  She was better than me as a warrior, but it was the proper Arkan thing to do.  Besides, her fur cloak was warm.

Around us there were other foreign dignitaries, including the entourages of Tor Ench and Haiu Menshir, Hyerne and tiny Zak from Brahvniki.  The crown Prince of Tor Ench, whom I would love to speak with, get to know, was on the dais next to the Lakan princess muffled to the eyebrows in silk and furs, as much as Laisa.  She was older, with the occasional tiny thread of white in her night black hair, but I thought her eyes were beautiful, over the gold-washed white silk.

On the dais there was Chevenga of course.  Along with Kallijas there were Yeoli officials.  I recognized the High Generals Hurai and the woman we called Steel-Eyes.  There was the former Imperator, his sister Artira. 

The square was jammed and the roofs of every building all the way around the square had a dark fringe of people on the roofs and at the windows.  Some people climbed out onto the ledges of the windows, reminding me of lower Arko, where people would sit on their window sills for parades and sometimes to escape the heat.  Here I was amazed they didn’t freeze their private bits off on the stone.

“Is it always this cold?” Laisa whispered in my ear.

“No, Serina.  It is often much colder, but it is somehow easier to bear when one is immersed in it rather than flying in.”

“Oh.  I see.”  She straightened on my arm and drew in a breath of cold air sharply into her nose as if fighting it.  I was trying hard not to feel envy.  She is going to marry the man.  He is going to ask her, soon, if he hasn’t already and she knows she is going to go to this snow spangled, human spangled wasteland.  She knows, even if he doesn’t, that he is going to marry her.