*
Shirin Mam was working at her desk. Does she never eat? Kyra paused outside the Mahimata’s cell. Markswomen were supposed to need less sleep and food as they grew older and more adept in the Mental Arts. Not that Kyra felt in the least hungry herself right now. There was a tight knot of tension in her stomach that threatened to push itself out of her throat. She didn’t want to see Shirin Mam. What she really wanted to do was go back to her cell, pull the rug up over her face, and sleep for the next twelve hours.
“Come in before you collapse at my door,” came Shirin Mam’s voice. “If you would but pay attention instead of daydreaming through my lessons, you would not need more than four hours of sleep a day. Even those hours you would grudge, knowing that sleep is a kind of death, just as death is a kind of sleep, however temporary.”
Kyra swallowed. She entered and bowed, trying to summon the courage to say the words she had mentally practiced a hundred times now. I’m sorry I listened to Tamsyn. There’s something wrong with her. Maybe there’s something wrong with me too. Maybe I don’t deserve to be a Markswoman.
Shirin Mam steepled her fingers. “The past couple of weeks have been hard, yes? It is always so. Everyone else is more skilled and experienced than you. You think you don’t belong, like you can never match up to the more advanced Markswomen. It was the same for me also.”
Kyra gazed at the Mahimata, astonished. Somehow she had never thought of her teacher as being a young novice, or an apprentice who had yet to prove herself.
“Everyone goes through this phase,” said Shirin Mam. “In this you are not unique. Even Lin Maya, the founder of the Order of Kali, was filled with misgivings.”
“Surely not,” Kyra blurted out, her worries about Tamsyn temporarily forgotten. Lin Maya and her cohort were the stuff of legends. They were the first Markswomen of Asiana, and they had brought peace to the Ferghana Valley, brokering accords between warring clans, forcing them to accept the authority of the Order.
“I have been reading a copy of her memoirs.” Shirin Mam indicated a tattered old book on her desk. “They are quite enlightening. Apparently, she questioned whether we should use kalishium to kill anyone. She was, you should be aware, the first to fashion a blade for herself using the metal.”
“But the Kanun of Ture-asa says that only Markswomen can take a life, and they should use kataris to do so.”
“We forget that Ture-asa was just a man,” said Shirin Mam. “He was a wise man and a king, but he was not God. Nor was he a mouthpiece of the Ones. He wrote the Kanun just over eight hundred fifty years ago, long after the Ones had returned to the sky. He foresaw the emergence of the Orders from the chaos that reigned after the Great War, but he did not foresee how kalishium would dwindle, and how the ability to use it would vanish over time. Who still lives now who can forge a true katari?”
Shirin Mam fell silent, her face shadowed. Then she raised her head and fixed her gaze on Kyra. “Doubt is not your enemy. Face your doubts and fears so you can understand yourself better. Work hard—harder than you ever have before—and you will begin to chip away at the distance between you and the more advanced Markswomen.” Her tone became brisk. “This brings me to the reason I have called you here tonight. I want to take you to Anant-kal, the world beyond time.”
“What is this place, Mother?” asked Kyra, with a sinking feeling. “How come I’ve never heard of it?”
“It is the world as perceived by our kalishium blades,” said Shirin Mam. “The ability to enter it unaided is quite rare. I myself have done it several times, but I am the exception. As you will be.”
Kyra swallowed. “And how exactly do you get there?”
“When we bond with our blades at the end of the coming-of-age trial, it opens up a bridge that most Markswomen will never see. Cross that bridge and you enter Anant-kal.”
“So it’s an actual place?”
“It’s real enough, but not in the physical sense,” said Shirin Mam. “You’ll understand what I mean once you’ve walked there. You must enter the second-level meditative trance to find the bridge to Anant-kal. We can try this right now. I will help you.”
A bubble of apprehension rose in Kyra’s chest. She didn’t want to go to this Anant place, whatever it was. It sounded eerie—a place that was real, but not in the physical sense. Wasn’t that the same thing as a dream? She had enough to deal with at night without seeking more strangeness in her waking hours. “But I have not yet achieved second-level meditation,” she protested.
Shirin Mam waved a dismissive hand. “You will achieve it today,” she said. “Too much food and sleep binds us to our bodies. Missing a meal or two can help, especially if you’ve never done it before.”
Kyra blinked at the Mahimata. So she had made her miss dinner on purpose.
“Close your eyes and empty your mind.” A thin, cool hand closed on Kyra’s. “The only barrier is the one that you create yourself. Why so attached to this limited body? Why so fond of this restless mind? Let it go; let it all go, until only the real you remains.”
“The real me?” echoed Kyra, bewildered.
“That which is timeless and beyond the constraints of the physical world,” said Shirin Mam. “It is the real you that I call for. Come, walk with me.”
Kyra closed her eyes and was surprised at how easily she slipped into the first-level meditative trance. Shirin Mam had helped her in some way, but it felt natural. She relaxed and breathed. What had she been afraid of? She couldn’t remember. The light-headedness she’d been feeling from lack of sleep and food morphed into a warm, hazy sensation.
Shirin Mam’s voice, gentle yet commanding: “Remember what it was like when you held your katari for the first time. Remember katari-mu-dai, the moment you laid your lips on the blade and welcomed it into your soul. Focus on the bond you have with your blade.”
Kyra slipped deeper into the trance, and the world dimmed. Her blade shone in front of her, a silvery green beacon glowing with intention. How beautiful it was. The light bobbed ahead of her, beckoning. Kyra followed. As she moved, the light moved too. It darted ahead and she had to run to keep up with it. Beside her, and a little behind, she sensed Shirin Mam keeping pace with her.
The fog cleared. The light of her katari grew bigger and brighter until it was a blaze. The blaze elongated into the shape of a door—a rectangular opening of light in a dark world—and Kyra ran toward it without thinking, knowing only that she must go through the door of light before it closed.
She emerged on a grassy cliff perched under a deep blue sky. Blinded by the sudden sun, she gasped and reeled, reaching out for something to hold on to, but falling to her knees instead.