Shadow and Betrayal

and Otah Machi entered, carrying a tray with three small bowls of tea. Stone-faced, the boy put the tray on the low table and took the ritual pose of greeting.
    ‘I am honored by your presence, most high Dai-kvo,’ Otah said perfectly.
    The old man’s eyes were alive now, his gaze on Otah with a powerful interest. He nodded, but didn’t commend the boy to his studies. Instead, he gestured to the empty seat that Milah usually took. The boy looked over, and Milah nodded. Otah sat, visibly sick with anxiety.
    ‘Tell me,’ the Dai-kvo said, picking up a bowl of tea, ‘what do you know of the andat?’
    The boy took a moment finding his voice, but when he did, there was no quavering in it.
    ‘They are thoughts, most high. Translated by the poet into a form that includes volition.’
    The Dai-kvo sipped his tea, watching the boy. Waiting for him to say more. The silence pressed Otah to speak, but he appeared to have no more words. At last the Dai-kvo put down his cup.
    ‘You know nothing more of them? How they are bound? What a poet must do to keep his work unlike that which has gone before? How one may pass a captured spirit from one generation to the next?’
    ‘No, most high.’
    ‘And why not?’ The Dai-kvo’s voice was soft.
    ‘Milah-kvo told us that more knowledge would be dangerous to us. We weren’t ready for the deeper teachings.’
    ‘True,’ the Dai-kvo said. ‘True enough. You were only tested. Never taught.’
    Otah looked down. His face gray, he adopted a pose of contrition.
    ‘I am sorry to have failed the school, most high. I know that I was to show them how to be strong, and I wanted to, but—’
    ‘You have not failed, Otah. You have won through.’
    Otah’s stance faltered, and his eyes filled with confusion. Milah coughed and, taking a pose that begged the Dai-kvo’s permission, spoke.
    ‘You recall our conversation in the snow the night I offered you the black? I said then that a weak-minded poet would be destroyed by the andat?’
    Otah nodded.
    ‘A cruel-hearted one would destroy the world,’ Milah said. ‘Strong and kind, Otah. It’s a rare combination.’
    ‘We see it now less often than we once did,’ the Dai-kvo said. ‘Just as no boy has taken the black robes without a show of his strength of will, no one has put the black robe away without renouncing the cruelty that power brings. You have done both, Otah Machi. You’ve proven yourself worthy, and I would take you as my apprentice. Come back with me, boy, and I will teach you the secrets of the poets.’
    The boy looked as if he’d been clubbed. His face was bloodless, his hands still, but a slow comprehension shone in his eyes. The moment stretched until Tahi snapped.
    ‘Well? You can say something, boy.’
    ‘What I did . . . the boy . . . I didn’t fail ?’
    ‘That wasn’t a failure. That was the moment of your highest honor.’
    A slow smile came to Otah’s lips, but it was deathly cold. When he spoke, there was fury in his voice.
    ‘Humiliating that boy was my moment of highest honor ?’
    Milah saw Tahi frown. He shook his head. This was between the boy and the Dai-kvo now.
    ‘Comforting him was,’ the old man said.
    ‘Comforting him for what I did.’
    ‘Yes. And yet how many of the other black-robed boys would have done the same? The school is built to embody these tests. It has been this way since the war that destroyed the Empire, and it has held the cities of the Khaiem together. There is a wisdom in it that runs very deep.’
    Slowly, Otah took a pose of gratitude to a teacher, but there was something odd about it - something in the cant of the wrists that spoke of an emotion Milah couldn’t fathom.
    ‘If that was honor, most high, then I truly understand.’
    ‘Do you?’ the old man asked, and his voice sounded hopeful.
    ‘Yes. I was your tool. It wasn’t only me in that garden. You were there, too.’
    ‘What are you saying, boy?’ Tahi snapped, but Otah went on as if he had not spoken.
    ‘You say Tahi-kvo taught me strength and Milah-kvo compassion, but there are other lessons to be taken from them. As the school is of your design, I think it only right that you should know what I’ve learned at your hand.’
    The Dai-kvo looked confused, and his hands took some half-pose, but the boy didn’t stop. His gaze was fastened on the old man, and he seemed fearless.
    ‘Tahi-kvo showed me that my own judgment is my only guide and Milah-kvo that there is no value in a lesson