The Wise Man's Fear

so quickly that my hand was stinging and empty before I could think. Then she grabbed my wrist and pulled, lashing out to kick my leg in a fluid motion. I leaned, buckled, and she stretched me out flat above the ground.

This landing wasn’t soft, more a jarring flop onto the grass. It didn’t completely stun me, but that didn’t matter because Celean simply reached out and tapped my head twice. Signaling that if she’d wanted to, she could easily have knocked me unconscious.

I rolled into a sitting position, aching in several places and with a sprained pride. It wasn’t badly sprained though. My time with Tempi and Vashet had taught me to appreciate skill, and Celean’s Ketan truly was excellent.

“I’ve never seen that version of Break Lion before,” I said.

Celean grinned. It was only a small grin, but it still showed a glimpse of her white teeth. In the world of Adem impassivity, it was like the sun coming from behind a cloud. “That is mine,” she said. Extreme pride. “I made it. I am not strong enough to use regular Break Lion against my mother or anyone your size.”

“Would you show it to me?” I asked.

Celean hesitated, then nodded and stepped forward, holding out her hand. “Grab my wrist.”

I took hold of it, gripping firmly but not fiercely.

She did it again, like a magic trick. Both of her hands moved in a flurry of motion, and I was left with a stinging, empty hand.

I reached out again. Amusement. “I have slow barbarian eyes. Could you make it again so I can learn it?”

Celean stepped back, shrugging. Indifference. “Am I your teacher? Should I give something of mine to a barbarian who cannot even strike me in a fight?” She lifted her chin and looked off toward the spinning sword tree, but her eyes darted back to me, playfully.

I chuckled and came to my feet, bringing up my hands again.

She laughed and turned to face me. “Go!”

This time I was ready, and I knew what Celean was capable of. She was no sort of delicate flower. She was quick and fearless and aggressive.

So I went on the offensive, taking advantage of my long arms and legs. I struck out with Dancing Maiden, but she skipped away. No. It would be better to say she slid away from me, never compromising her balance in the least, her feet weaving smoothly through the long grass.

Then she changed directions suddenly, catching me between steps and slightly off my stride. She feigned a punch at my groin, then pushed me slightly off balance with Turning Millstone. I staggered but managed to keep my feet beneath me.

I tried to regain my balance, but she brushed me again with Turning Millstone, then again. And again. Each time only shoving me a few inches, but it kept me in a helpless stumbling retreat until she managed to plant her foot behind mine, tripping me and sending me flat onto my back.

Before I’d finished striking the ground she already had hold of my wrist, and soon had my arm tangled firmly in Ivy on the Oak. This pressed my face into the grass while putting uncomfortable pressure against my wrist and shoulder.

For a second I considered trying to struggle free, but only for a second. I was stronger than she was, but the whole point of positions like Ivy on the Oak and Sleeping Bear is to put pressure on the fragile parts of the body. You did not need a great deal of strength to attack the branch.

“I submit,” I said. This is easier to say in Ademic: Veh. An easy noise to make when you are winded, tired, or in pain. I’d become rather used to saying it lately.

Celean let go of me and stepped away, watching as I sat up.

“You really aren’t very good,” she said with brutal honesty.

“I am not used to striking young girls,” I said.

“How could you become used to it?” She laughed. “To grow used to a thing, you must do it over and again. I expect you have never struck a woman even once.”

Celean extended a hand. I took it in what I hoped was a gracious manner, and she helped pull me to my feet. “I mean where I come from, it is not right to fight with women.”

“I do not understand,” she said. “Do they not let the men fight in the same place as the women?”

“I mean, for the most part, our women do not fight,” I explained.

Celean rolled her wrist over, opening and closing her hand as if there were some dirt on the palm and she was absentmindedly trying to rub it off. It was the hand-talk equivalent of puzzlement, a confused frown of sorts. “How do they improve their Ketan if they do not practice?” she asked.

“Where I come from, the women have no Ketan at all.”

Her eyes narrowed, then brightened. “You mean to say they have a secret Ketan,” she said, using the Aturan word for “secret.” Though her face was composed, her body vibrated with excitement. “A Ketan only they know, that the men are not allowed to see.”

Celean pointed over to the bench where our teachers sat ignoring us. “Vashet has such a thing. I have asked her to show it to me many times, but she will not.”

“Vashet knows another Ketan?” I asked.

Celean nodded. “She was schooled in the path of joy before she came to us.” She looked over at her, her face serious, as if she would pull the secret out of the other woman by sheer force of will. “Someday I will go there and learn it. I will go everywhere, and I will learn all the Ketans there are. I will learn the hidden ways of the ribbon and the chain and of the moving pool. I will learn the paths of joy and passion and restraint. I will have all of them.”

When she spoke, Celean didn’t say this in a tone of childish fancy, as if she were daydreaming of eating an entire cake. Neither was she boastful, as if she were describing a plan she had put together on her own and thought very clever.

Celean said it with a quiet intensity. It was almost as if she were simply explaining who she was. Not to me. She was telling herself.

She turned back to look at me. “I will go to your land too,” she said. Absolute. “And I will learn the barbarian Ketan your women keep secret from you.”

“You will be disappointed,” I said. “I did not misspeak. I know the word for secret. What I meant to say is that where I come from, many women do not fight.”

Celean rolled her wrist again in puzzlement, and I knew I had to be more clear. “Where I come from, most women spend their whole lives without holding a sword. Most grow up not knowing how to strike another with a fist or the blade of their hand. They know nothing of any sort of Ketan. They do not fight at all.” I stressed the last two words with strong negation.

That finally seemed to get the point across to her. I had half expected her to look horrified, but instead she simply stood there blankly, hands motionless, as if at a loss for what to think. It was as if I’d just explained to her that the women where I came from didn’t have any heads.

“They do not fight?” she asked dubiously. “Not with the men or with each other or with anyone at all?”

I nodded.

There was a long, long pause. Her brow furrowed and I could actually see her struggling to come to grips with this idea. Confusion. Dismay. “Then what do they do?” she said at last.

I thought of the women I knew: Mola, Fela, Devi. “Many things,” I said, having to improvise around the words I didn’t know. “They make pictures out of stones. They buy and sell money. They write in books.”

Celean seemed to relax as I recited this list, as if relieved to hear these foreign women, empty of any Ketan, weren’t strewn around the countryside like boneless corpses.

“They heal the sick and mend wounds. They play . . .” I almost said play music and sing songs, but caught myself in time. “They play games and plant wheat and make bread.”

Celean thought for a long moment. “I would rather do those things and fight as well,” she said decisively.

“Some women do, but for many it is considered not of the Lethani.” I used the phrase “of the Lethani” because I could not think of how to say “proper behavior” in Ademic.

Celean gestured sharp disdain and reproach. I was amazed how much more it