A tree limb creaked
and a lamb bleated. It meant, I am calm now. I am focused.
A bird cawed. It
asked, are you sure?
By now he had moved
across her whole field of vision and swapped sides from right to left. The
light sputtered and she dropped out into real time. Her father held out his
fingertips. There were black smudges on them from the fire pit.
He said, you have
black marks on your face and neck where you would have been struck dead. Again.
She brushed her cheeks
and her hands came away with black smudges on them.
He said, you must be
faster, smoother, more focused, and calmer. Rhythm and timing are more
important than raw speed or force. When you walk or run, you fall into a
natural pace. Trying to walk faster may work for a few steps, but you will
misstep. Pushing yourself to run faster will only make you slow down to find
your gait. You may even trip and fall. When horses run, they have three gaits:
the walk, trot, canter, and gallop. The beats for each are 4, 2, 3, and 4
again. These beats are not compatible and each rhythm has a specific
application and use. The Mongolians to the northeast have mastered each one.
You must learn to
follow the same beats to stay in synchronisation with the flow of time. The
number of the beats is two more than your name. 9003, the name of your twin
sister whose beats you will fill to move time.
She shook her head. I
have practiced 9003 many times and it doesn’t work. It is too difficult. I use
8999 instead.
He stared at her
dumbfounded. He repeated it slowly: _spenta nava nava nava_. Bountiful triple
pain. He repeated another homophone for the letter 8: father.
She nodded. Here, I’ll
show you.
With that, she counted
the syllables of the magical name that was two less than her name. She took
special delight in the natural downbeat of the 1/3 rhythm she had practiced to
herself during long nights and boring days of training. She was already in the
frozen time between light and dark. Her eyelids were opening already and the
bands of orange and darkness on the yurt _khana_ were gone. The whole yurt was
bathed in a wonderful glow of candle light and reflected white light from the
smoke hole above. She could move her hands and feet smoothly and effortlessly.
She was not moving quickly, but everything seemed aligned and balanced as she
thought briefly that the time magick had failed.
She saw her friend,
the spider, hanging by an invisible thread at an improbable angle, swayed by
some unseen breeze. But he did not move, nor did he fall or sway upward. The
spider simply hung there floating but solid: not floating, butfixed in one
spot.
She looked at her
father and was shocked to see him standing dumbly, his eyes half closed. The
orange and black bars flickered and she regained her focus quickly so that the
lines and shades merged into one bright picture. She continued to move in even,
smooth circles: elbow, wrist, waist, knee, ankle, and so on, in the same
rhythm. She had moved closer to her father such that the _man sao_ would be
able to seek the bridge if she reached out. Instead, she brushed his cheek leading
from the right, switched _wu sao_ to _pak sao_ and bumped his shoulder.
She was moving so
quickly she could see the shape of the indentation of her motions still moving
like ripples in water. She shifted twice more through the box of doom in front
of her father and used _pak sao_, slapping hand, on his right elbow and
switched hands and twister her wrist to hit his shoulder. She noticed too late
that his shoulder had somehow moved and his eyes were open. He blocked her arm
with _tan sao_, the receiving hand. Her bridge collapsed as he deflected her
attack and as he shifted, his _wu sao_ lifted her elbow and he shifted, moving
in for the rib.
She instinctively
rotated the elbow around the contact with the _tan sao_, knowing full well the
excruciating pain of a rib blow from countless practices. She allowed punch to
extend a bit more, waiting for the moment of commitment. Commitment was the
exact moment when the muscles, angles, and space of the attack had become firm.
In that moment, the attack cannot be recalled or changed: the rock was flying
in the air. When she saw the commitment form along the top of his arm, she
quickly turned her arm to water to circle the elbow forward, guiding the punching
fist helplessly behind her.
While she kept the
contact with the bridge forming behind her, his other hand was already forming
a _huen sao_, circling back to either a _fook_ or _pak sao_, good for either
subduing or slapping. She was already prepared, having turned her waist in
anticipation, calmly moving her feet propped up on the balls and moving
smoothly in circles along the dirt floor. The _wu sao_ in her left side came
forward from the shoulder, was propelled by the waist, which was locked in
strength and a straight line coming directly up from the earth. The hand moved
forward only as the elbow moved ahead of the shoulder. Her fist formed as a
packed line and she straightened her elbow only at the last moment. This
propelled the fist forward so fast it became a blur, even in the frozen time
magick.
Her hand struck
something solid and satisfying and she dropped out of the spell ready to gloat
about her victory. However, pain shot backward from her fist to her wrist,
elbow, shoulder and even her back. Her father had caught the punch and twisted
her wrist a quarter turn outwards so the thumb moved out from the centre of her
body. By turning the wrist outwards on a straightened arm, the radius follows
and twists the elbow open. It locked quickly and disabled the entire arm, and
thus, side.
He said, I am proud.
But you used the wrong side. You led with the right.
She gasped and
wrenched her arm back. She rubbed her deltoid and cried, I almost got you.
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