She made her way
deeper into the middle of the oasis, unsure what exactly she should look for. She
felt a tingling in her spine and the hairs on her neck stood up. The words were
spoken in Avestan, but they slowly transformed as she processed the practiced
language in her head.
The words were:
Healer. Welcome back.
And: Turn around.
She placed her hand on
her father’s blade and turned. An unusually happy old man sat on a rug next to
a yurt. He nodded and laughed and laughed silently. He waved: Come here.
He nodded again,
grinning ear to ear, and patted the space on the rug next to him.
She walked over
hesitantly. She asked in her native tongue: What do you want, grandfather?
The old man smiled and
smiled, and laughed. He had perhaps only one tooth in his whole head. His face
was impossibly old and wrinkled, but the hills and valleys in his face were completely
smooth and shiny. One eye seemed completely covered by eyelids and the colour
was off, almost whited out with a milky mist.
He spoke Avestan again
and it took a while to make the marks in her head: Don’t be formal.
And: Sit. Sit.
She kneeled down
opposite him. This was both a sign of respect and a solid fighting stance. The
old man continued to laugh silently and smile crazily. His one good eye moved
around eagerly.
A squirrel chirruped
and the wind whistled through a canyon. This meant: I know who you are, child.
I know what you seek.
A camel belched in
response. She replied: Tell me everything.
The ancient man
smiled. He smiled more, and his lips spread so wide you could see the gaps at
the back of his jaw where his molars used to be. He nodded and nodded and waved
her inside the yurt.
She looked over her
shoulder and nodded inside. She pointed. It meant: In there?
The old man smiled and
laughed and laughed silently. He nodded the whole while.
9001 stood and turned,
then lifted the blankets covering the yurt entrance. Her eyes took a long time
to adjust to the darkness inside. But she heard a familiar voice and arch lilt
in the accent.
The voice said: Hello
sister. We meet again. Come in and sit down.
9001 pushed herself
forward into the space between the light and dark. Her eyelids were mostly
closed, but her senses were tuned and she could sense the layout of the yurt
and the objects in it. She moved swiftly in the proper rhythm, leading with the
left to pull out her father’s rondel and follow the corners of the imaginary
metre-sized squares in front of her. She closed the gap to her opponent quickly
and could see everything brightly by the third step.
A cicada hummed and a
rook tapped at some tree bark insistently. This meant: Do not fight. We must
talk.
Undeterred, 9001 could
feel and sense the forearm of her opponent in outside-cross position, that is,
her left was crossed with her opponent’s right. She pulled the blade back
across the elbow to cut the tendons where the bicep ended, and pushed forward
with the right hand to strike at the ribs behind the opponent’s elbow. She must
have missed with the blade, but that was a feint anyway, she did connect with
something that crackled and squished, though, as she smashed her right hand
through the target.
She felt a sharp pain
in her left side and collapsed in pain. Her left foot was simultaneously kicked
out from under her and she floated to the ground in the frozen time between the
light and dark. Her eyes were completely open by now and the light in the yurt
was bright. She stared straight up at the ceiling of the yurt. She marvelled at
how perfectly in sync she was despite being bested, and wondered at her mastery
of the magic spell.
She blacked out before
she hit the ground, however, and fell out of the spell as she rolled over in
pain. She raised her blade in the left hand defensively, trying to get her legs
under her. A foot pushed down on her left shoulder and she collapsed. Her
father’s blade went skittering across the floor. Her own blade was still
hanging on her right side and she wanted desperately to move her right hand to
it.
The foot pressed her
upper arm and shoulder, and was dangerously close to her neck. She grasped the
ankle with her right hand and tried to twist it off. A masked face leaned close
to hers and laughed gaily. She recognised the mask and the eyes from the night
when she had fought the woman in Kabul.
The woman said,
laughing: O sister! You are very determined! If you will not talk, at least
listen. Please listen to what I say. If you are wilful, you’ll just get hurt
more.
Another voice said:
Stop it.
It was her father’s
voice, she realised. Only she would have heard it. She relented and the foot
came off her almost immediately.
The woman offered her
left hand to help 9001 up. She took it with her right, which seemed more
natural and easy. Sure enough, the hands interlocked and the strength of both
arms lifted her easily. She felt sharp searing pain in her left ribs and
grabbed herself with her left arm to support her ribs and side.
They regarded each
other for a while, eye to eye. The woman seemed the mirror image of herself in
every way.
9001 asked: Who are
you?
The woman asked: Who
are you?
9001 said bravely: I
am 9001, daughter of 2711.
The woman said: Who
was your mother?
9001 held her mouth
shut in fear and shame.
The woman said: I will
tell you, since you know but won’t answer. Our mother was 2387.
9001 stared in shock.
Had the woman actually used the first person plural?
The woman laughed and
unhooked her silk veil from one side so that 9001 felt the shock of looking at
herself in a shiny reflection. Except that this was no facsimile of a shiny
reflection, it was a real person who looked exactly like the way she envisioned
herself from her reflection.
The woman said: 9001,
I am your sister, 8999.
9001’s mind rebelled.
She said numbly: My sister’s name is 9003.
8999 laughed happily.
She said: O sister! 9003 has too many threes. We are both indivisible, you and
I. The rhythms you have tried to use were mine and yours. But I am the
left-handed twin and you are the right. No wonder you are always slightly
unbalanced.
And she laughed again.
As 8999 laughed, she seemed to catch her right side as if she were hurt there.
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