Description: HAWKSPAR 1 Penitent My jara came at me with a quick punch and sweep of her ban. We were practicing that morning with ban-vi-ri, which means "stick like self"--they''re heavy wood staves cut to our height. The jara, taller than I, had better reach. I was quicker for once, however, and feeling more aggressive. "Hai!" I shouted, and went over her sweep, already moving inside her defenses and punching with my ban before she could pull hers back to defend herself. "You overreached." My ban smacked her ribs, and she yelped, and I spun the end overhand to catch her opposite shoulder a sharp downward blow. Done correctly, this will get through the padding of the rayan--the corded shoulder protectors that are a part of our penitent garb--and weaken the opponent''s grip on her stick. Done perfectly, it will cause the arm to go numb and the stick to drop from the hand. I, however, did it badly, because as I snapped my ban downward, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of an Obsidian stepping into the doorway to the fighting floor, then moving toward us. Which meant that my attention wasn''t fully on what I was doing. My blow bounced harmlessly, and left me with my stick up and entangled in the back of hers for an instant. The jara, for whom my secret name was Redbird, grinned, and used the opportunity to sweep me again and take my knees out from under me. So it was that I found myself lying on my back with my head ringing from the rap on the floor when the Obsidian stopped beside us and stared down at me. I had to guess she stared down at me--after all, she bore Obsidian Eyes,and it''s impossible to tell what those featureless, glinting black stones are looking at. Everything, maybe--or nothing. "Senior Penitent Ter Light Ranwi?" she said. I scrambled to my feet, and bowed. "Yes, sera." My heart was in my throat. The Obsidians are the warriors of the Ossalene Rite--silent and terrifying, dressed always in unrelieved black. They have fighting skills that defy the eyes and the mind, and what we see when they demonstrate skills for us or spar with us is only a portion of what they can do; they are rumored to walk on water and disappear and appear at will, to be able to kill with a fingertip touch or a whisper, to be able to see not just our sins of commission, but the sins in our thoughts. As I had lately occupied myself by committing all manner of both sorts of sins, I could barely breathe as I stood before the Obsidian. But she did not say, "I know what you''ve been doing." She did not say, "I know what you''ve been thinking." And she did not mention tossing me into a cage filled with starving rats. All she said was, "Oracle Hawkspar commands you appear in her private chapel next bell." And that was worse. All hopes I might have had of surviving the day fled. The only thing that could have made me more panicked than having an Obsidian single me out for attention was discovering she did so in order to command me to face an oracle. In the oracle''s private chapel at that, where none entered unbidden, and where only some who entered later exited. Nor would I be standing before just any of the Nine Holies. Oracle Hawkspar was the Eyes of War, the Living Goddess of the Blade, whose words brought kings and commanders, dictators and despots--all bearing the wealth of nations--to the Oracle Tower to beg for her true telling of their futures. Hawkspar was the commander of the Obsidians. She was, to us penitents, like Death incarnate. She knew what I''d been doing, I thought. But she couldn''t; if she''d known, I would already have been fed to the rats. Or perhaps she meant to make a spectacle of me. It would make sense. I said only, "Yes, sera," for if a penitent speaks to an Obsidian, the only acceptable answers are "yes, sera" and "no, sera." My voice shook saying merely that; I was grateful no more words were required of me. In my ears, the two words I had said screamed my guilt. Redbird''s hand rested on my shoulder, silent comfort. The Obsidian turned next to her. "Jara Light Ranwi?" "Yes, sera." "You will follow Ter Light Ranwi, and will see the Oracle Hawkspar when she is finished with the Ter." Redbird''s fingers tightened on my shoulder. "Yes, sera." The Obsidian flowed away without comment, and Redbird and I exchanged panicked looks. She, now ranked Senior Penitent Jara Light Ranwi, had been my closest friend since the day they chained her into the hold of the slave ship next to me. When we staggered off that ship, we stood side-by-side on the slave block in the market of the city below the Ossalene Citadel; we''d managed not to faint when a stone-eyed monk had touched us and told us in our own language that we were going with her; and we had managed to stay together through years of slavery within the Citadel, through the choosing that brought us as lowly penitents into the Ossalene Rite of the Cistavrian Order of Marosites, more commonly called the Order of Ossalenes. We''d risen through the ranks. We''d put together a fine, fine conspiracy. And now we had been found out. Hawkspar would not see mere penitents for anything less than the sort of overarching criminality that we''d committed. "You haven''t much time," Redbird whispered. She looked as pale and sick as I felt. "You can''t go looking like that." "Neither of us has much time." I needed to present myself, clean-showered and in formal garb, in less than a bell. Redbird would have a little longer--as long as it would take the oracle to sentence me to death. "I''m sorry," I told her. "You''ll never make it unless we run. I''ll help you," she said. We fled the fighting hall, and when we were clear of the Obsidian paths, raced to Ranwi Hall, up the spiral staircase from the common area into the cells, and into the cell we shared with two other Lights, Fawi Light Ranwi, and Ghoteh Light Ranwi. Penitents are designated by bed color, cell name, and hall name. These change each time a penitent moves on, either to become an acolyte or to be sent from the Order; all the other penitents move up a bed, and their designations change. Bad months, when a sera or two dies, or something unspeakable happens with a group of acolytes, our designations changed half a dozen times. We learned not to get attached to names--but we''d alreadylearned that when we were slaves. All slaves are called Slave. Nothing more--ever. We were beaten for speaking our real names, for using nicknames for each other. But Redbird and I had developed a system. We found common items around the monastery: wild animals, birds, flowers wild and domesticated, bits and pieces of cookware. We marked each other and our other coconspirators with these hidden nicknames, and by so doing, managed to hold on to news of each other, to stay in touch, to pass messages, to keep friends--the very things I suspected the ever-changing rank names had been designed to prevent. Our hidden nicknames could be passed in casual conversation, along with a specific movement of the face. Whatever magic their terrifying Eyes gave them, the blind Ossalene sera, we had discovered, could not read facial expressions. In our cell, which Redbird and I shared with two other penitents, we pulled our formal robes from the shelves. Then Redbird and I raced to the ground floor and to the penitents'' bath, a large open room with one wall dedicated to showers. Water poured constantly from twenty dragon-shaped showerheads, then down a drain and into the garden irrigation system. We placed formal robes on the long, narrow changing table, stripped off our work clothes, and tossed them into the basket where the penitents assigned to laundry would gather them up. And we plunged into the icy downpour. I scrubbed quickly, soaping body, face and hair with the harsh lye-and-ash soap we penitents used, that the slaves made. When I was a slave, I had hated soap-making days. Even terrified, though, I kept to my ritual. I sent the magic into the water. If all hope was gone for me, it still might remain for some of the girls in the monastery. I put everything I had into the little spell. And I prayed to a forbidden god that rescue would come in time to save even me. For the love of Jostfar, by the hands of the Five Saints, save us before we perish. I did not let myself think about Oracle Hawkspar, or what she might want with me. I had served her for a season my second year as a penitent; I could be said to know her better than most, yet she remained a mystery to me, and she terrified me. With her stone Eyes that replaced her sacrificed human eyes, she saw what had been, what was, and what would be in the dealings of the great men of many nations, and if she was so moved, she would tell those who petitioned her what she saw. Oftentimes she sent the mighty and the rich away with nothing. She was a harsh woman, cold and demanding, and if her visitors displeased her, she turned her back on them. Most things displeased her. She did not like children at all, and the girlswho were assigned to serve her, slaves and penitents alike, cowered at her slightest whisper of displeasure. In the season I spent serving her, I had wished one of the two of us dead every single day. The longer I served her, the more I didn''t care which of the two that might be. I stepped out of the shower shivering, and Redbird tossed me a coarse hemp towel pulled from the rack. A few flicks took care of my hair, what little of it there was. Slaves'' heads are shaved, penitent

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