Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 17

He did not look up when Zhair'lo reached the doorway, but waved him in anyway.

"In, Zhair'lo," he said, his voice flat as stone. "Have a seat."

"Master Lyric," Zhair'lo replied, taking the seat across directly across the large wooden desk from Lyric.

"Tell me about Jenni."

"Jenni?"

"The girl at the halfway camp? I believe that was her name."

"Uh, yeah," Zhair'lo hemmed. "What about her?"

"Notice anything odd? I only ask because you were the only ones who managed to stay conscious."

Lyric had still not looked up from his papers.

"She showed up late was all."

'Keep things simple,' echoed into his head from far away.

There was a pause as the tall man finished up reading a document and levelled his eyes at Zhair'lo.

"They're investigating," he said, jerking his head in the general direction of the Temple. "On account of 22 women and men falling unconscious. They imagine some sort of poison in the air, though no one has found any such thing near our Halfway Camp."

Lyric had asked no question, so Zhair'lo could only gaze steadily back at the man and pretend to be dumbfounded.

"Tell me what you remember."

Zhair'lo looked over Lyric's head as if that would help him to recall the details, although all he really wanted to do was avoid having to lie while directly staring into the man's eyes.

"She showed up later than the rest of the women," Zhair'lo said, keeping his voice as steady as possible. "Called my name, as if it mattered to her or something. We went back to my tent. Did it three times."

He levelled his eyes back to his Master.

"You don't remember anything odd? Any sense of being lightheaded or dizzy?"

Zhair'lo shook his head. This he could answer honestly.

"Except for that feeling you always get in the mesh," he replied with a shrug.

Lyric paused thoughtfully.

"Did you mesh with her fairly early on?"

"I don't know. Maybe? Do older people wait longer than young people?"

Lyric let out a breath that might have an aborted laugh.

"Possibly that saved you from whatever happened to the others," Lyric explained. He waved his hand over the papers at his desk. "No one else had meshed yet, you see."

The large man shrugged.

"It's a problem for the women to solve," he said with a note of finality. "We're Hunters, not scientists."

Zhair'lo relaxed at this, though he was careful not to let out anything obvious like a sigh of relief.

"I believe, however, that you came here for some other reason," Lyric said, his voice trailing a bit high at the end, almost as if it was a question.

The moment of truth, then. Zhair'lo took a breath.

"I want to join the Fighters," he blurted out.

Another small breath of air escaped through Lyric's nose. It might have been something like surprise this time, though Zhair'lo had never seen the man taken off guard by anything, but it came out more like cynicism; an audible version of a shrug.

"A little early," was his first, dry remark.

"Kenji said I was too young, too," Zhair'lo began his defence. "I want -"

"Oh, not that, boy," Lyric gently cut him off, his tone that of a very old man speaking with exaggerated gentleness to his youngest apprentice. "It's just that the women had figured it would be six more weeks before you'd go off to the edge of the city."

"What?"

"Oh, yes. Don't ever think for a moment that they don't have you figured out top to bottom and front to back," Lyric confided. "Because they have. They were just a little off on their prediction this time."

Zhair'lo was staring at Lyric with his mouth hanging half open.

"They told you that I would want to join the Fighters," Zhair'lo stammered.

"Indeed," Lyric seemed to take a bit of pleasure in watching the younger man's shock. His speech took on a rhythmic cadence, as if he was reading from a scroll. "If you did not leave voluntarily in the next two months, I was to encourage you to do so. You see, the Fighters only take volunteers."

Zhair'lo's eyes were now on his hands in his lap.

"They want me to become a Fighter," he muttered in astonishment.

It was crazy on the face of it. The last thing the Temple should want was to teach him how to handle even more weapons, but there it was. This all hinged on believing Lyric, but Zhair'lo had no reason to distrust the man. The only conclusion was that the Temple had wanted him to know how to kill things using a bow and, that having been accomplished, also wanted him to learn specifically how to kill other human beings.

They still trusted him, in spite of everything. They believed in their test and he had passed it. End of discussion, apparently.

"The question is whether or not you want to be a Fighter," Lyric intoned.

Zhair'lo perked up, for this was not some idle enquiry. His Master meant something else by this.

"I ... said I did," he answered hesitantly.

"I have no intention of doing the Temple's bidding in this matter," Lyric explained, his voice going dark and just a bit haggard. "I will not encourage, cajole or browbeat you into choosing that vocation. Were it any other assignment, I would follow their instructions, but not this."

Zhair'lo felt his body go cold. He remembered Master Harzen's lecture, oh so long ago, that obedience to every "request" and "summons" from the Temple was absolutely mandatory. Disobeying orders from the Temple was no minor offence, and here was a man – a Master, even – confessing to that very crime in front of his most junior charge.

He found his throat too choked up for him to say anything in response.

"The Fighters aren't like any other assignment, Zhai," he said, fixing his hard eyes on Zhair'lo's. "You can die out there, for one thing. You have to kill people, for another. Generally, they do a lot more killing than dying, so the odds on a long life are good, assuming that matters as much to you as it does to most. But you should know that the path of that long life will be trail littered with the bodies of those you've killed, and – barbarians though those dead may be - that's no easy thing to look back on."

Zhair'lo gulped, unable to tear his eyes away from the darkness he saw in his Master.

"For another thing," Lyric went on, "you can never quit. You might leave the barracks and attend to other vocations, as needs vary and time changes everything. But you will always be a Fighter. They can always call on you when there's a need. Your status as a Fighter, like the memories of the people you've killed and the friends who have died, will always be with you."

A sudden realization gripped Zhair'lo.

"You," he let out a hoarse whisper. "You were a Fighter?"

It was barely a question.

"Am," Lyric corrected sternly. "Are you paying attention? I am a Fighter. They can call on my bow anytime they like."

Zhair'lo nodded a quick and fearful acknowledgement.

"At least you're thinking now," Lyric chastised with a wry grin. "So head on back out to the range. Put a few arrows through a target and see if it bothers you imagining it's a man you're striking down."

The Master paused a moment.

"Striking dead," he corrected. "After that, if you still want to be a Fighter, there's nothing I can do to stop you."

Standing up, Zhair'lo offered a half bow.

"Yes, sir."

With a wave, Lyric gave him a final dismissal. When Zhair'lo was out of sight, he took a fresh sheet of paper, dipped his pen in his inkwell and began writing a letter. It was fortunate, in his mind, that the Queen of Sweetness wouldn't be able to sense his chagrin in reporting that everything was pretty much going to work out exactly as she had figured it would.