Shaman's Crossing

Dewara moved toward the other side of the small pond. I watched him kneel. He used his hands to smooth the coating of plantlets away from the water’s surface before he bent his head and drank. I hoped that he would suck up a frog.

Having drunk, he moved back onto drier ground and settled himself for the night, which was now closing around us in earnest. I watched him, seething. His bland assumption that I was no danger to him, his mocking dismissal of how he had mistreated and maimed me, affronted me beyond insult. I choked on the indignity of it. “Why did you follow me?” I burst out at last, and hated that I sounded like a child.

He didn’t even open his eyes. “You had my taldi. And I told you. Kidonas keep their word. I must take you back safely to your mother’s house.”

“I want no help from you,” I hissed.

He leaned up on his elbows and looked at me. “Not even my Keeksha, that you ride? Not even the meat you just ate?” He leaned back, scratched his chest, and made the small sounds of a man settling down for the night. “Eat your pride tomorrow, I think. You have lots. Very filling. Tomorrow we start to make you Kidona.”

“Make me Kidona? I don’t want to be Kidona.”

He laughed briefly. “Of course you do. Every man wants to become the man who has bested him. Every youth with a thread of war in him wishes to be Kidona in his heart. Even those who do not know what Kidona is yearn for it, like a dream still to be dreamed. You wish to be Kidona. I will waken that dream in you. It is what your father wanted me to do, I think, even if he dared not say it.”

“My father wishes me to be an officer and a gentleman in his majesty’s cavalla, follow the ancient traditions of knighthood, and bring honor to my family name as the men of my line have always done, since ever we fought for the kings of Gernia. I am a soldier son of the Burvelle line. I desire only to do my duty to my king and my family.”

“Tomorrow, we will make you Kidona.”

“I will never be Kidona. I know what I am!”

“So do I, soldier’s son. Sleep, now.” He cleared his throat and coughed once. Then he fell silent. His breathing deepened and evened. He slept.

Full of fury, I walked up to him and stood over him for a time. He opened one eye, looked up at me, yawned elaborately, and closed his eyes again. He did not even fear that I’d kill him in his sleep. He used my own honor as a weapon against me. That stung like an insult, even though I never would have stooped to such a dastardly act. I stood over him, aching for him to make some sort of threatening move so that I could fling myself on him and try to throttle the life out of him. To attack a sleeping man who had just bypassed the opportunity to kill me while I sprawled at his feet was beyond dishonorable. Humiliated as I was, I would not and could not do it. I walked away from him.

I made my bed a good distance away from him and huddled in my nest of dry grass, feeling queasy still. I thought my anger and hatred would keep me awake, but I fell asleep surprisingly quickly. At fifteen, the body demands rest regardless of how sore the heart may be. Somehow I had completely forgotten my plans to ride in the darkness, letting the stars guide me home. Years later, I would begin to comprehend how neatly Dewara had put me under his control again. I would comprehend, and see how it was done to me, but I would never understand it.

The next morning, Dewara greeted the new day with enthusiasm and extended his good wishes and warm fellowship to me. He behaved as if all differences between us were settled. I was mystified. I ached still, and a private inspection of my chest and belly showed me the deep bruise I bore. My slit ear still burned from my morning ablutions. I itched to carry on my feud with the man; I almost hoped he would somehow abuse or challenge me so that I could fight him. But he was suddenly all good-natured jests and companionable conversation. When I reacted to his friendly overtures with suspicion, he praised me for my caution. When I maintained a surly silence, he praised my warrior’s quiet demeanor. No matter what I did to express my defiance of him, he found something in it to compliment. When I sat absolutely still, refusing to respond to him in any way, he commended my self-control, and said it was the wise warrior who conserved his energy until he understood his situation.

In every imaginable way, he was a different man from the one he had been the day before. I vacillated between being stunned by the change in his demeanor and being certain that his apparent sincerity was a mask for his contempt of me. His friendly behavior made my hostility seem childish, even to myself. His affability made it difficult for me to maintain my antagonism toward him, especially as he endeavored to include me in every one of his activities, beckoning me repeatedly to come closer while he explained his actions in detail. Nothing in my life experience had prepared me for something like this. I wondered if he was mad, and then wondered if I was.