“So,” I say to Vekken. “Fighting.”
I am sitting in their space for once, in what looks like one of Qevellen’s family rooms. Vekken’s in a chair by the hearth; Kor’s sitting in another near him, with Ajan at his feet.
I am sitting on the hearth, knees up and arms looped around them. From what I can tell there is some protocol relating to seating, historical as well as social. It’s not formalized, or at least it hasn’t been to me, but relational posture is important. So I keep my head lower, to acknowledge that I’m aunerai despite my having earned myself a title of my own among them.
Of course, even standing up my head is lower than theirs, but, you know. It’s the thought that counts.
“Ran,” Vekken says. And lifts a hand. “What we call it. The discipline of fighting, the fighting mind. That’s jargon, by the way. A caste-word.”
“It’s what differentiates us from other Ai-Naidar,” Ajan says. “The thing that makes an Ai-Naidari a Guardian and not some other caste.”
“Hefshe,” Kor says when I frown. I look up at him. “The qualities in spirit that differentiate castes.”
“Right,” I murmur. “Go on, then. The hefshe of Guardians.”
“Involve violence and discipline,” Vekken continues.
“Violence,” I say, because I’m not sure I’m getting that one right. “The ability to do physical violence?”
Vekken chuckles. “No, little sister. Violence.”
Now I hear the difference. Not aqat, physical violence, but gash: “Passion,” I say. “You mean passion.”
“Just so,” he says. “What makes us Guardians is passion, and the ability to bridle it—and give it rein to useful cause.”
“Tell her about kolovar!” Ajan exclaims. At Vekken’s askance look, he says, “She’s not Ai-Naidari, she won’t be offended.”
“Kolovar,” Vekken says with a sigh. “Is Guardian’s pride.” At my puzzled look, he says with a grin, “We think we are the most Ai-Naidari of Ai-Naidar. Because our submission is the most complete of any Ai-Naidari in Kherishdar. We give ourselves entirely, to the point of being willing to die.”
“Right,” I murmured, because I can actually see how that might work. “So… ah… I have been asked about your practice? Do you have forms? Bouts? How does all that work?”
“We drill,” Vekken says, amused in his gruff way.
Shame, of course, has absorbed far too much human culture over my shoulder. “We call them conversations. What you call kata. Lokiv, conversations. Defensive responses are replies. Attacks are queries. The jargon grows more complex from there. There are styles of reply: denial, deflection, deception, turning the question back on the querent and so on, just as there are styles of questions. One might be good at different styles of conversation, but it is considered important above all to be ulivet, flexible.”
“In the past, one learned a conversational style from a master in it,” Vekken says. “These days we think that’s trash. The best Guardian is the Guardian who knows how to make conversation with anyone, and lead the conversation to the ending he desires. We learn everything, little sister, and we use it all. It’s the end that matters.”
“Bouts between Ai-Naidar are conversations,” Shame adds. “But we might also have debates and arguments.”
“And monologues, if the two people involved are verrrrry poorly matched,” Ajan says with a grin.
“And solo practice is… the word we use is okoli,” Shame says. “The same word we use when building a logical proof for an argument. As one builds an argument, one builds the queries and replies into one’s body-memory. But it is never considered true practice without an opponent.”
“All solitary practice is a shekoleshi,” Vekken agrees. Thought exercise, I remember. That would make sense for a social people.
“Body-memory,” Shame adds, “is metyave, which formed originally from met, “body,” and yavele, “memories.” ”
“And what we learn is kolaqat. The logic of fighting,” Vekken says. “Fight-logic, kolaqat.”
“My head hurts,” I mutter.
“You’re trying to cram centuries of culture and practice into one sitting,” Vekken says, amused. “What do you expect? The history of the Guardian caste is ancient, little sister. It’s full of mistakes and precedents and traditions. We have our own philosophers, our own scholars, our own historians. And much of it will make your head hurt even worse.”
“Dare I ask for an example,” I mutter.
“Physicians were once part of the Guardian caste,” Kor offers. When I look up at him, he says, “They were considered warriors whose work was to excise and destroy disease, so for a long time they trained as Guardians and then took additional learning in medicine.”
“They still can train as Guardians,” Vekken says. “We offer that as a courtesy because of our shared history. If you see a physician with a silver edge on his stole, or a blade on a badge, then he took the training.”
“Doctors?” I say, incredulous. “Were martial artists?”
“Admittedly these days it’s rare,” Shame says. “Physicians now hold to a philosophy of prevention of disease; that is their focus in modern Kherishdar. But the history is there.”
I rub my forehead. “There are more questions…”
“Then we will get to them,” Kor says. “But perhaps not yet.”
“Your head needs a bandage,” Ajan says, grinning. “We say you took a buf.” At my squint, he mimes smacking someone on the head. “Buf. It’s a… a sound.”
“Buf,” I mutter. “Ugh.
