She heard footsteps
and several people starting to shout. She ran out the door and down the
hallway, fleeing out the window and nearly tumbled down the wall. She unknotted
the bottom section with her father’s _patu_ and wrapped herself in it as she
fled blindly into the city. She found the arch with the square column and the
carved horse’s head. She waited there for a while, shivering from fear and
cold.
Her father said:
Leave. They will find you.
She started at the
voice. She looked around.
He said: I am not
here. I am _urvan mazda_, a mind spirit. You must go.
She skipped down the
thoroughfare in the dark. Skipping was easier, quieter, and more sustainable
than running. She tried to skip from shadow to shadow. Occasionally she stopped
behind a wall or in an alley to listen and watch for pursuers or guards. She
could barely hear anything above the ringing in her ears and the beating of her
heart. Fortunately for her, there was nothing to hear.
She was able to reach
the gates but they were closed. The guards patrolled the area regularly and
several were posted above the wall with torches. They would surely be notified
about the attack soon, before the morning light when the gate would be opened.
She could not merely wait for the gate to open. It was too large and heavy for
her to move alone. The guards would quickly notice and attack in any case. She
stood out as well, a young woman unescorted and wearing a man’s _patu_.
A delicate hand
settled on her shoulder and she nearly cried out, but caught herself. Instead,
she steeled herself and settled into a fight stance called the horse. She
pushed herself into the space between light and dark. She was glad that she had
frozen time nearly perfectly. The street and wall of the building near her were
illuminated brightly in pale moonlight. Her eyes were nearly wide open. As
smoothly and calmly as she could, she turned on the balls of her feet, shifting
with her hips first. She drew out her father’s rondel in her right hand as she
spun.
The person behind her
had withdrawn their hand from her shoulder. 9001 slashed in the direction she
was sure her attacker stood. Even if she missed, which she did, at least she
could clear an area to move into and form a new stance facing her enemy. To her
dismay, the person who had patted her shoulder was able to freeze time as well,
or at least seemed to move as quickly as she had only seen her father moving.
As she formed her
second stance and faced the attacker, 9001 could see that the person wore a
woman’s shift like hers, but ornately decorated and made of fabulously
expensive silk, ribbons, buttons, and precious stones. The woman was close to
her own size and moved her hands and feet in a practiced, methodical manner.
The forms were not known to 9001, but they were a close dialect of her own
form.
She swung with her
knife hand to slash at the closest body part on her attacker, which was the
forward shoulder on the attacker’s left. She soon realised she was leading with
the right and knew she had made a mistake. The other woman’s bridge hand lead
with the left and came up under 9001’s wrist. A quick twist of _huen sao_,
circuling hand, flipped the knife out of her palm easily.
9001 confidently
struck towards the other woman’s chin, stepping forward to close the distance.
The other woman’s _bong sao_, or wing arm, cut her off and effectively moved
her fist away harmlessly. Before 9001 even had a chance to react, the other
woman had already counter-attacked and nearly clipped 9001’s chin. Her _wu
sao_, guarding hand, had been in the correct position by some happy providence.
She was able to move the _wu sao_ against the elbow of her attacker so the arm
passed in front of her nose.
9001 struck at the
attacker’s throat with _biu sao_, darting fingers with a flat hand, palm down.
Her elbow was moved aside with _fook sao_, the hook hand. The attacker’s other
hand moved over the _fook sao_ and struck 9001’s deltoid, then applied negative
pressure upwards on the elbow, hyper-extending it. 9001 rotated slightly,
pulled her arm back and then swung it the long way, down and around to escape
the _fook sao_. It was a long, slow and exposed escape, but at least she
avoided getting locked up, or spraining a joint.
So it went for a few
rounds, 9001 would attack and get blocked easily, then she would have to
regroup faster than she had ever trained with her father so that she could
block the counter-attack. She was winded and the lights began to flash with
alternately long and short shadows as the rhythm of her attacks and blocks
lagged and rushed the distances between light and dark.
It seemed to 9001 like
she had been fighting for ten minutes, but she realised it was only ten blinks.
Her mind was distracted by these calculations because her attacker easily
darted to her side and kicked her stance out from under her at the knee. She collapsed
out of the spell and fell on the ground as the darkness settled over the area.
She scrambled for her father’s blade a few feet away from her.
She turned toward her
attacker who stood over her triumphantly. She heard nightingales singing and a
Euphrates jerboa laughing. It sound like: Ha ha, that was fun.
9001 was confused. She
made a sound like the cicada whirring in the heat. It meant: How do you speak
the silent language?
The woman laughed out
loud this time. She said: Sister, you are so funny.
The familiar address
was startling. The accent was strangely stilted but clearly understandable. The
woman must be the same age as her. She also wore a silk veil like the Masked
Ones. How was it possible that a Masked One was trained as a Healer?
9001 held the blade in
front of her, trying to get her feet under her. The woman offered her left hand
to help, keeping it safely out of reach of the blade. 9001 transferred the
blade to her left hand and then grabbed wrist-to-wrist with the stranger. She
was lifted to her feet easily.
9001 put her blade
away and panted heavily. She rubbed her shoulder and elbow. 9001 said: Who are
you? What do you want?
The woman shushed her.
She said in that stilted, perfect but informal accent: Be quiet. The guards are
looking for you. I will help you escape.
A wind blew through
the trees and leaves rustled. It seemed like the phrase: Follow me.
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