He hesitated; she did not turn to see if he obeyed. She still had the voice and manner of a princess of Rasa. The man-at-arms left the lantern on a plinth and ran.
From the edge of her eye she saw Temur shift his weight, but he hesitated—dagger in his hand, to be sure, and balanced on the balls of his feet—but not yet stepping forward. She released his hand. From the way his head tilted, she understood that he would have given her a grateful glance for not fouling his line of attack, except no mortal power could have shifted his eyes from the monk.
Brother Hsiung stepped back into the courtyard, claiming his space. He resettled into his stance—balanced, fluid—and began to move again. Simple forms, meditations, building rapidly to more complicated and focused ones. Samarkar, who had practiced with him across the wastes of salt and sand, watched for a moment or two.
Then she walked forward, onto the flags of the open court, and faced him. She thought Temur would reach for her. Perhaps he did, but if so he paused before his hand made contact and let her pass unimpeded.
The early forms were easy. Samarkar kept pace at first. She thought she understood what Hsiung was doing—using the forms to control whatever sorcery raged beneath his skin—and she was determined to mirror his concentration. To offer him support.
That green light behind his eyes twisted and flickered, but they did focus on her briefly before his expression turned inward again. Sweat collected on his brow, first a skin of it and then beads, rivulets. It splashed from his nose and spiked his eyelashes, and still they moved in echoes.
He soon outstripped her skill and continued—at first ever more elaborate, then deceptively simple and with snakelike speed. But she paced him, falling into her own routines—a silent ally, if nothing else. And she watched his eyes.
The lines of concentration on his forehead smoothed as he found his rhythm, to be replaced by serenity. The crawling fire that burned within his irises began to dim, until it was like looking at the last veil of flame surrounding a red-hot coal before it gutters to an ember. He continued, hands stroking the air with conviction and certainty now, feet moving fluidly from one stance to the next. She had lost her focus on Temur and only with the dimming of the glow infecting Brother Hsiung did she become aware that the lamp still burned over her shoulder.
Samarkar might not have known when the light died entirely, except the crawling shadows died too. Hsiung did not cease, however, until his forms were complete—and so Samarkar perforce kept pace with him. Their martial dance was a spell, now, and she would not risk breaking it.
Eventually he came to rest, facing Samarkar, his broad chest rising and falling slowly, but strongly enough to be visible in the firelight. His hands hung relaxed at his thighs. His clothing hung too, sand-worn and sweat-soaked, clinging to his skin. He bowed his head to her, and when he raised it again his eyes were wide and brown and faintly cloudy.
A male voice—full and controlled, worn smooth by years—spoke over Samarkar’s shoulder in tones of mild surprise and satisfaction. “Edifying. Perhaps we should take this inside, where the tea is waiting.”
Ato Tesefahun, Temur’s grandfather and their host, had arrived.
2
Ato Tesefahun—Grandfather, as Temur was still trying to learn to think of him—was a small, spare man whose brown skin bore a scatter of even darker spots across both cheeks. He dismissed the man-at-arms back to his post and led the remaining three into a house that now glowed with the light of dozens of lamps. Having closed the door, he gestured them to seats on jewel-colored cushions arrayed around a low tea table. He provided a robe to cover Temur’s near nudity. Temur was glad to slip the cool cotton on and settle himself cobbler-fashion on the tiled floor. He glanced around the room as he adjusted the cushion under his hips. It was a fighter’s impulse—assets and liabilities—which he smiled slightly to recognize in himself.
This was a large chamber, red-walled in stone and clay like most houses in Asitaneh. But in this house the stone was worked with every contrivance of the mason’s art. A counter-relief of vines wriggled up alongside each of the many narrow windows, intaglio flowers picked out in pigments so brilliant as to be visible even by lamplight. The room held little furniture—just a second low table in addition to the one around which Ato Tesefahun seated them. It bore a laden tea tray and four glasses. Ato Tesefahun fetched those himself and brought them back.
The black-and-red enamel of the tray was protected from the heat by a folded towel. Steam coiled from the chased silver pot as Ato Tesefahun lifted and poured through a long spout into each glass. His motion drew Temur’s attention to the small roll of paper and the brush and the well of western-style ink beside it, but Ato Tesefahun made no gesture toward them when he set the pot down again and served the tea.