Chapter 9
Jayce ran through a passageway to a lift where Maru and Sarai waited. He skidded into the lift and bumped Sarai with his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said. “Got my hilt. Wearing good boots just like you said. Where we going?”
“Not someplace you’re going to like,” Sarai said. The lift doors closed and it rose slowly.
“You will be in no danger,” Maru said. “The FTL bubble is absolute and Uusanar has pressurized it from the ship’s emergency atmosphere tanks.”
“Wait.” Jayce frowned. “Where are we going? Exactly?”
The lift doors opened to the outer hull. A gust of cool air washed over them as the stretched light of the FTL passage danced in a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns.
Jayce choked down a mouthful of something that came up from his stomach.
“It takes a little getting used to,” Maru said, “but being this close to the Veil can be rather soothing to those of us Attuned to its energies. Sarai, would you be so kind as to begin the kata?”
Sarai stepped out onto a wide, flat space on the Iron Soul’s hull and ignited her hilt. The blade was translucent, but the shape was stronger than Jayce had seen before. She bowed toward the prow and the onrushing Veil.
She stepped back into a fighting stance and raised the flat of her blade parallel to her forehead, then hopped forward and cut across her body in a fluid motion. The sword dance continued, her blade catching light from the Veil and flashing as she struck and flowed from one move to another.
“I glimpsed memories of you fighting in some sort of sanctioned fight,” Maru said. “How much combatives training have you had?”
“Scale bouts are more about hurting the other guy faster than he can hurt you,” Jayce said. “There wasn’t anything elegant about getting punched in the face. But I learned rhythms. How to read a defense and how to duck and weave. Punches that miss don’t hurt.”
“Interesting,” Maru said. “We call this kata the Flow. It is not meant to teach you how to defend yourself or others with your Fulcrum blade. Rather, it is meant to train you to release your mind and act with the Veil.”
“She started over,” Jayce said. “Same moves again from the same starting spot.”
“Very good,” Maru nodded. “Perceptive.”
“How does doing the same dance over and over again help in a fight? The Veil wants us to run around in circles?” Jayce asked.
“In order to manifest the Veil’s influence on our dimension, one must ‘attune’ at a higher level. Manipulating causality is no simple feat. But after training generations of Paragons, I’ve learned that the Veil must be felt. Words are inadequate. Would you like to begin?” Maru stepped out of the lift.
“How do I do it? I don’t even have one of those swords,” Jayce said.
“Here.” Maru handed him a wooden handle with a brass cross guard. “This is a training device. Veil-stone dust is embued through it, but it is useless anywhere but the hull during FTL. It will suffice until I can help find a hilt suitable for you.”
Jayce squeezed the training hilt and a ghostly long sword appeared. He touched the flat of the blade near the tip and his touch passed through it slowly. He winced as a slight cut drew blood from the side of a finger.
“Always treat your weapon as if it were real.” Maru took a single part of his glaive hilt off his belt and a wavy short-sword blade manifested.
“But you fight with the whole hilt,” Jayce said. “Why only use part?”
“Flow is not about fighting, it is about acting without acting. No mind but the will of the Veil,” Maru said. “It is only performed with blades at this length and style.”
“Why?” Jayce tested the heft of his weapon.
“Questions are not helping you. Now, let us begin the ninety-seven steps. Right foot back, blade at ready. Good. Now watch me.”
Jayce went through the moves step by step. He stumbled through the first few moves and was told to start again by Maru after every mistake. Much to his surprise, he retained the movements and was able to complete the entire kata after an hour of constant practice.
He thrust his sword forward for the final move, then swept back to the starting position.
Maru clapped politely.
“How?” Jayce asked. “I’m kind of a dummy. Why does it feel . . . feel like I’ve always known how to do it? Like I still can swim even after months stuck on the decks from an injury.”
“The Attuned are of the Veil and the Veil is of us,” Maru said. “The first members of the Sodality thought they came up with the Flow—though they were separated by hundreds of light-years and had no FTL communications—at the same time. When they gathered at the first Shrine world many thousands of years ago, they realized that they all knew the Flow. The identical kata to what you’ve performed.”
“Huh . . . weird,” Jayce said.
“Their summation was a bit more verbose but the gist was the same,” Maru said. “You do not need to be on the hull of a ship to enter the Flow. Frequent practice is encouraged. The challenge is to perform it perfectly without conscious thought.”
“Have you been able to do that?” Jayce asked.
“No. Perfection is unattainable, but through trying to reach it we can discover mysteries we never knew existed. I may reach that point eventually, but listening to the Veil as I perform is the true purpose. You need to increase the range of motion in your shoulders for the thirty-seventh step, your riposte is too slow.”
“Right, I’ll work on that.” Jayce watched as Sarai began the kata again. “Hold on, the Veil somehow taught the first Adepts this dance before they’d ever met each other?”
“Kata. It is an active meditation.”
“But . . . why?”
“You will never find the answer if you ask the question,” Maru said.
“That doesn’t make sense. How am I supposed to learn if I don’t ask?”
Maru flicked Jayce’s ear lobe.
“Ow!” Jayce rubbed his ear furiously. “Stop doing that.”
“I had to snap you from a harmful thought spiral. Do not seek reasons while you perform the Flow. Your mind will keep you from hearing.”
“What do you learn when you listen?” Jayce asked Maru.
Maru raised a hand to the practice area. Jayce shrugged and began the kata. Halfway through, he braced his hand against the lower third of his blade and forced it downward, then stabbed the tip forward and ducked an imaginary blow. He stopped . . . then looked at Maru.
“Finish,” the Paragon said. “You must always finish.”
Jayce did as instructed, but his footing was off and he nearly slipped several times. He returned to the starting position, breathing hard.
“Maru, is there another kata after this one?” Jayce asked.
Sarai flowed to the end of her practice and stopped.
“Why do you ask?” Maru clasped his hands behind his back and paced back and forth in front of his students.
“Because we’re not shadowboxing.” Jayce made a face. “I don’t know a right way to say this. When I prepped for bouts, I’d warm up with a lot of punches, but it wasn’t like sparring. This kata, this Flow . . . we’re fighting someone else the whole time. I feel the momentum shifting. I can almost feel the other blade against mine. And there’s only one other fighter.”
“Pssh.” Sarai became annoyed. “Who told you that? Was it Eabani?”
“No one told me. It’s just there,” Jayce said.
“Very good.” Maru gave Jayce a pat on his shoulder. “You’re learning.”
“So, do we learn the other side of the kata?” Jayce asked.
Maru looked him in the eye, then motioned toward the training area.
“Keep practicing. You’ll know when you’re ready. Let us Flow together as one, yes? You’ve both made so much progress.” Maru ignited his sword.