Someone walked between him and the bank of candles. Actually, there were two men: one of them a young man, the same age as himself, the other older by some twenty years or so. They both wore the standard robes of the order, perfectly plain and ideally suited for the exercise of religion, and both had swords in their sashes, just like his own.
'Has it stopped raining?' the older man asked.
'Quite some time ago,' he replied. 'In fact, it's a lovely evening.'
The older man nodded. 'It's about time we had some better weather. Now, Monach, Poldarn, when you're both ready.' He stepped back a pace or two and stood with his arms folded, while the younger man loosened his sash and tied it again, twisting two turns of cloth around the scabbard of his sword before tightening the knot.
'Can we begin?' he asked.
'Whenever you like,' the older man replied.
The young man took a deep breath and knelt down on the floor, slowly drawing his sword and laying it on the mat in front of him. He did the same; then, at the same moment, they bowed to each other, sat up on their heels and sheathed their swords. The older man clapped his hands once, and they both stood up. 'Poldarn,' the older man said; and the younger man bowed again. 'Monach.' He returned the bow. It was all very polite and graceful, but it wasn't making him feel any less nervous. Quite the reverse, in fact.
'You may begin,' said the older man; but neither of them moved. The younger man, Poldarn, took two deep breaths, drawing the air slowly down into the pit of his stomach, holding it there and slowly letting it out again. Suddenly he realised, as if remembering something obvious but temporarily forgotten, that when Poldarn had finished taking in his third breath, he'd draw; that would be the moment. He also knew that it was far too late to prepare himself to meet that draw, that inevitably he'd lose. He took two steps back and held up his hand.
'I'm sorry,' he said.
Poldarn relaxed, slumping forward slightly as the tension drained from him. 'That's perfectly all right,' the older man said. 'Take a moment and start again.'
This time, he knew exactly what he had to do. Instead of watching Poldarn he ignored him completely, concentrating instead on his own breathing, making sure he knew where his own hands and feet and head were, building his circle so that he'd be able to tell when something broke into it even if his eyes were shut. He drew in his third breath until his lungs and stomach were full; only then did he look for his opponent-found and marked him, though really it wasn't necessary, his hand would know where his enemy's neck would be. As soon as there was no more room left for air inside him, he felt his right hand relax In the event, he did the draw perfectly, flawlessly, to perfection, in accordance with all the precepts and observances of religion. The back of his hand found the hilt and flipped over so that the fingers could close around the sharkskin-wrapped handle. His left thumb flicked the swordguard forward to free it from the jaws of the scabbard and the draw launched: the sword slipped effortlessly free and began its precisely directed journey, sweeping forward like a lava flow, unstoppable and deadly. It was a perfect draw.
But apparently Poldarn's was better. As he fell backwards, in the last moment of consciousness, he wondered how on earth anybody could draw so fast; and he realised that the difference between them was one of time, because somehow his draw had been in the present, whereas Poldarn's had already happened, Poldarn had already drawn and struck and beaten him before they'd even faced each other on the mat.
Then he opened his eyes. Poldarn was kneeling over him, looking worried. The older man was standing behind Poldarn's shoulder, with a faintly disappointed look on his face.
'Never mind,' the older man said. 'My mistake. I believed you were ready, and you aren't. It's just as well we had this practice, before we tried it with sharps.'
'I'm sorry,' he heard himself say. 'It was the wrong time. I hadn't realised.'
'That's all right,' the older man said. 'It's all part of learning, after all. Help him up, Poldarn, and get him a drink of water.'
Poldarn pulled him to his feet and steadied him with an arm around his shoulders. 'I hope I didn't hurt you,' he said.
'No, I'm fine,' he lied. 'My own silly fault-seems like I've been missing the point all along.'
'Quite,' the older man said. 'In fact, it's quite remarkable that you were able to fool me into thinking you were ready. If you can draw that fast with just your hand and arm, you ought to do well once you've learned the proper way.'
That sounded like a compliment, but he was feeling too groggy to parse it thoroughly. 'It's because-' he started to say, but he couldn't find the words.
The older man nodded approvingly. 'It's because once Poldarn set his hand to his hilt, the draw was already done and over,' he said, 'whereas in your case it was just beginning. You still exist in the moment.' And he pointed up at the ceiling, to the two painted swordsmen frozen in the instant of the draw. 'You have everything, all the technical accomplishments, but you have no religion. It's very perplexing,' he added, 'because usually, at your stage of training, it's the other way round: still not perfect technically, but perfect in religion, which is all that matters in practice. You're still nothing but a human being with superb reflexes. Poldarn, on the other hand, is a relatively slow and cack-handed god. Now,' he went on, 'if I were you I'd go and sit down outside for a while, since it's such a pleasant evening, and take a moment to catch your breath and pull yourself together.'
That seemed like an excellent suggestion, so he followed it; and after a while he began to feel drowsy and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he knew at once that he was actually asleep and dreaming, because the first thing he saw was a huge black crow.
It was sitting on a fire-blackened timber that stuck out from a pile of rubble and ashes, and as soon as it saw him it spread its wings with a resentful squawk and lifted laboriously into the air. He felt an urge to grab a stone and kill the horrible creature, but he couldn't be bothered; instead, he watched it flap away until it was out of sight. Crows, at that precise moment, were the very least of his worries.
'Well,' someone standing next to him said, 'that's that, then. A pity it had to end this way, but it wasn't your fault. Wasn't anybody's fault, really.'
Far away in the distance, the mountain was leaking glowing red blood. 'How can you say that?' he replied, finding enough passion to be angry, much to his surprise. 'It was their fault for starting it. It was my fault for finishing it. Of course,' he added bitterly, 'you can't be expected to understand, since you're just an offcomer.'
'Fair point,' the other man said-he hadn't turned to look at him yet, couldn't be bothered to do so now. 'But it was all just trivial stuff, a quarrel about a cart. Odd how it always seems to begin with a cart-there's some sort of pattern there. I think I'll go and see if there's anything worth having in the barn.'