Some things SHINE even in the dark!

To the Victor...

The early morning hush was broken only by the waves lapping against the quay, punctuated occasionally by the shrill cries of water birds. Pasher peered out into the early morning haze, scanning the shrouded horizon for the boat. The damp air wet his linen singlet, causing it to cling to his toned body. A dozen others stood around in the damp morning, all in similar garb. They had gathered over the last hour or so, anticipating the ferry to their shared destination. Here and there, knots of would-be passengers traded what sounded like pleasantries or halfhearted complaints about the morning chill, but Pasher stood alone - a Neran amongst a crowd of The Waerd. His Isshek was barely passable, but for these sentiments tone was enough. Besides, weeks of training and self-sacrifice had brought him to this place, and he could think of nothing but his looming purpose: the Trials, and the prize he hoped to win there.

The longboat slid out of the fog, weirdly soundless but for the creaking of the long timbers that framed the wide hull. The small crowd hushed at the ferry’s sudden appearance, the gravity of the situation suddenly heavier than the morning mist. At the fore of the long ferryboat stood one of The Waerd, stern and dark eyed, wrists bound to the elbow in deep red silk. Pasher’s heart quickened in his chest. All that he had been working toward would soon come to fruition. He straightened his posture and took a step forward to let the mann at the fore see him as the most eager, the most suited to the coming challenge. By the Virtues, whatever it took, Pasher was determined to master these Trials he had heard of and return to impress The Girl.

He had seen her first as she stepped off of a boat much like the one he waited for now. She was of The Waerd, and obviously young, but Pasher couldn’t be much older. He’d only just left the farm a year before. Back home they said that if you’d seen one of The Waerd you’d seen them all, but not this one, not to Pasher. To him, the Waerd girl was the embodiment of grace. She wore beaded piercings that offset her sharp features in a way that struck him dumb, and it seemed that the sun shone more brightly wherever she stepped. Never in all his years had he seen her like.

Day after day he pursued the girl. He arranged to coincidentally show up wherever she was likely to be, even feigning accident and injury in her sight, but he couldn’t catch her eye. No matter his antics, this girl of The Waerd would not see him. To her, he was simply invisible. After weeks of following her around, he learned her name from the woman at a fish cart that she frequented. It was Hashwana. To Pasher, even the strange Waerdic name was exotic and beautiful. From the Fishwomann he learned that Hashwana had come from the mesas of the semi-arid desert, that she was learning to be a excisemann, and that soon she would be joining the local Consulate of The Waerd.

Once he knew her name, Pasher redoubled his efforts, his antics becoming even more outrageous, but, each time he tried to hail the girl, she wouldn’t respond. It was as though he didn’t exist. Exasperated, he fell deep into his cups at a portside tavern. There, Pasher was telling his sad tale of dismissal to a fellow dockworker named Sterks when a drunken lakemann sitting nearby coughed loudly and, through rheumy eyes, told them of an event he had encountered, which he had taken at the time to be a sort of contest. The drunk had plied the waterways for years and had seen much. For years he watched representatives regularly send boats down the long lake from Gartvalley to gather up the youth of The Waerd, hauling them all thereafter back to the mesas for some sort of ritual sporting event.

One summer, the mann had said, he had stayed in the far off port during the events surrounding these Trials. There had been drinking and festivities and demonstrations of athletic skill in the streets. He couldn’t tell too much from the fuss and hubbub around the actual contestants, they were kept from the party but, from what he gathered, these youths were to run a dangerous gauntlet. Those that proved fastest, strongest, or most agile were granted a title that surely conveyed some great honor. The drunk across the bar spoke on and on about his time in the Waerd settlement where this trial had taken place, though Pasher’s mind was beginning to stray. A thought was slowly forming in his ale-hazy mind. If he could win the favor of her own people, surely this Hashwana would notice him! All he had to do was return to Greyboar Flats having beaten out others of The Waerd, and the girl would have no choice but to acknowledge his presence. Maybe she would even be impressed. As the night wore on, Sterks passed out and the drunken lakemann began waxing philosophical about his thoughts on the hidden purpose of these trials. He was well into a wine-slurred exploration of the machinations of the actual selection and reward processes of the secretive Trial Masters of The Waerd but by then Pasher had stopped listening entirely. With Hashwana as his inspiration, Pasher would find a way to enter and win these Trials.

He excitedly told Sterks his plan the next day. “Those Trials?” Sterks spat and laughed. “My uncle told me it was all just some show The Waerd put on!” At Pasher’s incredulous look he went on. “Those of The Waerd have a compact with their two-faced goddess, right? You can bet the seers tell them who to choose and the rest of ‘em are just along for the ride! What do you even think you’ll get out of this? Don’t you know the Waerd don’t marry outsiders? You’ll be lucky to even be allowed to participate.” Pasher had been the one to laugh then. “By the Virtues Sterks," he said, "I’ll get in, and I’m gonna win.”

He spent the next month watching for a boat like the ones that lakemann had described, until the day came that one quietly arrived at this unassuming little dock. Pasher approached the Waerd at the prow, and, straining his already poor Isshek, expressed his curiosity about the Trials he had heard about. At first, the mann was reticent, but the youth’s eager enthusiasm soon moved him to work through their linguistic differences to attempt to explain that, indeed, he and others like him did preside over a sort of rite of selection, and that, indeed, there were titles to be earned by completing it: Tested and Victor. When Pasher had communicated his desire to participate, the older mann seemed confused, but was willing to take the young Neran mann the next time he came. Pasher, filled with the fires of love, set out to train in anticipation of the Waerd's return.

Now, only a couple of months later, he stood on the very dock where he first saw The Girl, waiting for the ferry to arrive that would take him to the scene of his triumph.

The boat stopped at the dock with a thump, and a handful of identically dressed Waerdic boatmenn leapt from the bow to tie her down and arrange a gangway. The old mann with the red sleeves raised his arms and welcomed those gathered in the morning mists each, one at a time. To each of them he spoke a single word in Isshek. He paused when he came to Pasher, but for a moment, and instead of a Waerdic phrase said to him, “and you, as well.” Pasher’s heart was in his chest, this was it!

The longboat had two floors belowdecks, and the challengers filed into the first of the dim holds. Pasher ducked to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling and found his way to a wide bench along the berth where he stowed his bedroll and sack. Narrow windows let the lake breeze in and showed Pasher that the morning sun had burned away the haze. This would serve as both bunk and common room for the next few days as they traversed the inland sea that would bring them from the salty marshes surrounding the lake to the semi-arid deserts where the trials would be held.

Pasher settled in and tried to get comfortable in his berth. The hold was only moderately full of The Waerd, and they were sure to pick up more along the way, so getting his own space established was paramount. Time enough to be social later, he needed room to keep in shape for the Trial. After a while he heard the drums below him begin and felt the boat shift away from the mooring. A slow rhythm began then, each booming stroke slow and sonorous, a heartbeat for the oarsmen to keep cadence with – dip and pull, dip and pull.

By evening, the hold was full of hopeful contestants, and the air hummed with conversation. Near Pasher’s place in the boat a tall, thin youth the others called Osletrush spoke up in heavily accented common Neran. “Have we ever seen any Neran on a voyage such as this?” Another, a little older than Pasher scoffed, “We wonder if this Neran even knows what we are here to achieve.” Pasher’s answer brought uproarious laughter from those assembled. “Her name is Hashwana,” he began, “and she lights up the boardwalk when she’s there.”

Again the lanky Waerd spoke up “Don't be foolish, friend. The girl is a obviously a child, and we are not certain that the Neran boy is that much more.” But Pasher would not be daunted. “You’ll see!” he shot back, “When I’m named Victor, you’ll see what happens!”

The Waerd seemed only bemused, “When you have become one of the Tested, indeed we will.” he agreed.

The next few days were repeats of the first, the Waerd alternately mocking or egging Pasher on about his vague ambition and their upcoming trial. During their twice-daily meal he would be chided for his Neran manners, Waerdic customs and etiquette lost on the farm boy.

“How does a Neran boy imagine meeting with The Waerd girl’s family when Nerans don’t even pinch the vole with the frybread?” he was asked. “They’re not meant to be eaten separately, and with no chanqanf! A boy has much to learn of The Waerd.” These sentiments were repeated at each meal, in various form.

At night, Pasher fell asleep to long chants in the Waerds’ native tongue, bouncing seamlessly voice to voice around him. At times he even felt just at the edge of understanding, only to find the glimmers of comprehension to be figments of his dreaming mind. Three full days of this, and a night, and the fourth morning found them arriving on the shore.

As the boat had traveled the long lake northward, brackish marshes and rolling farms gave way to drier climes and wider spaces. By the third day Pasher was farther from home than he’d ever been. He took to watching the slowly rolling landscape beyond the unfamiliar shore in the middle distance. Now, as he and the others took to the deck to disembark, he was momentarily stunned by the full spectacle of the vast, red-rock vista, with thin clouds threading towering mesas far, far way.

The next few days passed quickly as Pasher and the others were shuffled from the boat to a large cart and thence to a sort of hostel wherein they were to learn the rules of their trial. All of the supplicants shared a large dormitory hall, even showers and toilets were open and communal. Pasher quickly learned that every waking moment would be spent in the company of the rest of these people. Every day thereafter was occupied with practice sessions running elaborate, wooden obstacle courses in the hot sun. Meanwhile his evenings were filled with lectures, half in Isshek words that Pasher mostly understood, but punctuated by phrases and contexts that his Neran perspectives made difficult. Each night, as he tried to sleep, the chants from the nights on the ship were rejoined until, by the day of the trial, he felt he almost knew them by heart.

At last, almost a week after his arrival, the contestants were given clean singlets to wear, loaded again into a covered cart, and taken to the hidden site of the Trial some place well outside of the city. After a few hours on the road, the base of an ancient, red-stone mesa hove into view. The cart slowed and stopped and, one at a time, the contestants were taken from it, blindfolded with a length of deep red cloth, spun around three times, then led off into the Trial grounds by minders wearing similarly colored arm-wraps. Pasher watched this happen half a dozen times through the flap of the wagon, and then the guardsmann pointed at him and beckoned that he come forth.

Pasher realized that he had been holding his breath. With a sharp intake, he stood from the wagon bench and made for the door. Once on the ground outside, the escort settled a red, silk cloth about his eyes and tightened the blindfold. He was taken then by the shoulders and spun three times. His escorts took his hand and led him away from the cart. Soon, Pasher felt the air cool as he was led into some shaded place, out of the sun. He heard the creak of a heavy door, and then was led through. The blindfold was removed, the escorts withdrew, and the wooden door was closed behind him leaving him alone.

No light nor breeze penetrated the heavy door behind Pasher. Before him, through an open portal, a short, wide hallway yawned. A breath of air came from deeper within the cavern, cool and steady. Nearby, charcoal fires crackled in large, iron braziers near each wall. All else was still. Pasher’s heart thumped in his chest. Steeling himself, he walked into the hall.

It was a dead end, lit by a single torch on the wall. Pasher walked slowly towards the back end where he spied a trellis or latticework of smoothed wooden staves, lashed together with strips of something. Following this up the wall with his eye he saw a platform high above. This was to be his first obstacle then. Easy enough. Pasher scrambled quickly up the first dozen rungs before settling into a steady rhythm. A little over halfway up the wall, the trellis petered out, and Pasher had to shimmy to the side to keep climbing. This was not a problem for him. It was just like climbing the fence around the horse paddock back home, and soon he was at the top. A few steps away an empty doorway opened onto a sudden drop.

Pasher stepped to the edge to behold a wide, empty room. Four tall poles of wood supported four square platforms at varying heights. On the farthest, another brazier burned brightly above a shadowy, consuming gloom that hid the floor. Across from that, another similar doorway led to another, probably similar room, Pasher thought. So, the challenge was to jump across the platforms to the other side. He was prepared for that. It was like hopping rock to rock across a stream and, with a running start, he leapt quickly from platform to platform, stopping only at the fourth to catch his breath and survey the next hazard. To reach the far side of the room, he would have to make four more leaps, the first downward, and the next three each stepped upward such that he would need to clear the gap as well as jump upward.

Below him, the first of those platforms seemed to float in the gloomy light. If he fell, Pasher thought, it would not go well for him but, as he was already halfway across the room, there was nothing to do now but leap for it and trust in his practice. Pasher closed his eyes and jumped. The platform shook with his impact, but held steady and soon he was across. One more room completed, Pasher thought to himself, one step closer to his reward!

The next chamber was similarly open but, where the previous room held pillars and platforms, this one was mostly empty save a single length of rope, hanging over a pit in the center of the room. At the middle of the room a sort of bridge bisected the space, and, sure enough, in the center of the wall there was another door.

Pasher contemplated climbing down from the platform where he stood to the floor to get to the rope, but the thought of trying to build up the inertia he would need to swing up to the bridge put him off. Would they come to get him if he were to get stuck in one of these pits or would that be the end of him? Were they even watching? Pasher couldn't see how, there were no windows, no guardsmenn or minders in the Trial rooms. What if the old Waerd Trial Master had only taken him along to make a grim example of him? But no, the Waerd were strange, perhaps, but the rumors of them being murderous were surely exaggeration. They had housed, fed, and trained him for long enough for Pasher to feel confident that they weren’t trying to kill him outright. Still, he hesitated just a moment before he remembered he was doing this for Hashwana! He couldn’t let his worried head slow the triumph of his fiery heart. He ran and leapt out into open space and, as though guided by his passion, his hand found the rope. He grasped it tightly and let his momentum carry him forward into a wide swing. Elated, Pasher cried out as he rocketed up out of the arc and into a parabola that, after an expert tumble, landed him squarely in the center of the bridge. Despite his previous trepidation, this was proving almost easy! He trotted lightly into the next chamber.

This room was tall and close. In the center stood a fat, wooden post, like a mast-pole on a small boat. Above him, a platform jutted out to meet the pole. Pasher assumed the door was beyond that ledge as he could see no other way forward. Was this all he had to do? he thought. Cadging apples was a skill every farm kid put to use in the summer back home. Chuckling, he swung himself onto the pole and was at the ledge in no time at all. Here again a doorway opened in the hewn sandstone wall and, beyond it, another open room.

This time, the platform he stood on supported the end of a long, rounded beam that stretched across to a supporting pillar in the center of the room. There another pole of similar size extended to yet another support, and again, another pole led from there to a platform across the long hall. Was Pasher to cross this somehow? Peering across the room he could clearly see the doorway at the other end of the hall, midway up, on a platform like the one he was standing on. So, it was to be a test of his balance? What farm boy hadn’t spent hours tiptoeing along the farm fences, balancing all the way? He struck out confidently, one foot before the other until, at last, he was at the junction of the poles. He could see now that these were lain at an angle, to be all the more challenging but, by now, Pasher was elated with his own success. He nearly danced down the lengths of pole, quickly achieving the platform at the other side. What was next?

The flickering of torches beyond the door illuminated a taught line fixed to a support just a little taller than he. The line stretched out into the dim cavern and quickly dropped from dizzying heights downward to a far off anchor below. Following it into the gloom with his eye, Pasher now saw that the rope terminated at a fixture just over a slowly swaying platform. The door to the next room was just beyond. This was one of those zip lines that the Kypiq famously tied their tree-homes one to the other with. The practice courses back at the hostel had been linked similarly. Pasher watched the swinging platform at the far end of the room closely, it moved regularly, following a pattern back and forth through the gloom at the far end of the cavern. When the time was right, he took hold of the rope and away he swept down the line, through an open portal and into the light of dozens of torches.

There was no obstacle in this room. Instead, the smoothed, stone walls were hung with red-colored cloths and, in the middle of the room, stood the elder of The Waerd, slate and stylus in hand. He was watching a tall hourglass closely.

“Was that it?” an astonished Pasher asked the mann, but the old Waerd gave no response. Instead, the stylus dipped and marked a string of characters across the slate then flicked wordlessly at the tapestry behind them. Pasher got the idea he was meant to go through it and indeed, as he walked in the direction indicated, the cloth wall hangings rippled as though a breeze blew from somewhere beyond them. Pasher heard low conversation.

Beyond the cloth was a long, dark hallway that spilled into a cavernous room. Many others of The Waerd milled about. On a large board other menn were writing various things in the Waerdic script. Pasher couldn’t tell what they said or meant and, when he asked one of the others, their answer was cryptic at best. “It is a record we write there, of all of the Tested, that determines which of us will go where and when.” Pasher then noticed other menn moving through the room, their dark red arm-wraps setting them apart from the competitors. Now and then one of these would find a given member contender in the room and escort them away. Then, suddenly, it was his turn.

Pasher’s suspense didn’t last. he was soon pushed into another torchlit room, alone, and the door was closed behind him again. This room had a ladder leading up many meters above, Pasher looked around, and determined that it was the door, no doubt locked now, or the ladder. So he began to climb. At the top was another platform, another brazier beside a doorway, and more red sandstone rooms beyond. So, the trials were not at all over - they had only begun. Though this course proved a little more challenging, with more obstacles, in different configurations, Pasher still completed it with ease and, again, found himself in what he would eventually come to think of as “The Waiting Room.” Further exploration of this cavernous room taught him that there was food along one wall, and an area where other participants slept on the stone floor. Pasher ate a little and ran two more courses before he decided to try to sleep.

Later, his nap was broken by a tap from a minder, and he began the routine again. Each time he finished, the silent figure with the hourglass marked his notes on the slate and directed him back to the “Waiting Room” to eat, rest, and begin again. This went on and on, and Pasher lost track of time. Days must have passed in those torchlit halls. Pasher spent them running, jumping, climbing - brought closer and closer to his limits. Other aspirants came and went but, after a time, Pasher could hardly tell one from another. Their numbers waxed and waned around him and he went on single-mindedly. At first he dreamed of Hashwana when he lay down to rest, but by the end, he only saw the Waerd.

And then it was all just over. Instead of a new challenge, when the minder shook Pasher awake to lead him from the room, it was out through a different tunnel, past a heavy door, and into the blinding sun. The silent Waerd elder from the caves was there, and, as Pasher approached questioningly, he held forth a bundle. Pasher took it from him and found it to be a folded cloth of the same red weave that the old mann wore on his arms. “Is this for me?” he asked.

The old Waerd smiled then, and spoke, “The Neran boy was Tested. Now becomes Victor. Wear it well.” The mann walked past him then, and re-entered the hall. The door closed behind him with finality. Pasher looked down at the cloth and saw that the odd color was actually a mix of darker and lighter reds, woven together to create the strange, deep, red tint. As he was noticing this detail, a cough brought his attention to a covered cart nearby. Inside sat four other Tested, blinking into the sunlight, most of them looking as tired as he felt. They too held red cloth parcels on their laps. Pasher got into the cart, and the driver urged the sturdy horses on.

Exhaustion crept over him. Try as he might to stay awake and note where they rode, Pasher couldn’t help but sleep. When he finally woke, the cart was approaching the small city on the lake where the Waerd had taken him on his first day. They didn’t go there now, though. Instead the covered cart was taken to the docks, where a boat waited to take him home.

The other new Tested joined him in the hold. Over the course of the journey they all changed out of the linen singlets and dressed in the new Waerd wraps, so those that beheld them would know where and what they were returning from. Pasher put on his own wrap, learning how to fold and tie it from the others. It was strange, he reflected on the second night of this voyage, how these people just seemed to know what any one of them needed and could provide it without being asked. Pasher felt an odd attachment that he couldn't readily put his finger on now. They spoke less this trip also. Where the journey outward had been loud and even boisterous at times, this return was quieter, more pensive. His companions on this journey didn't even note his different heritage. Here was no joking or harassment, each passenger largely kept their own counsel.

Over the next few days each of them was left, one by one, at different docks until Pasher stood, at last, on the pier where it all began in Greyboar Flats. A few individuals moved through the morning mists around him, attending to the beginning of their day. Pasher looked, but he did not see amongst them the old fishwomann that had known the name of his crush. No matter, he remembered that The Girl was soon to join the the Waerd consulate. Surely they would help him, he had been selected Victor of the Tested!

The walls of the compound were a smoothed clay that reminded Pasher of the sandstone walls of the Trial grounds. The walls were braced with scaffolding that recalled the lashed woodwork of the trial constructions, and the doors, heavy and wide, were of the same thick wood. By the time he arrived, it was nearing noon and the doors stood open, the courtyard full of the Waerd engaged in various activity, or sitting in circles listening to an oration. He didn’t recognize Hashwana anywhere. There were two class of the Waerd here. One, Pasher assumed the visitors or customers, wore various things, but the others all dressed alike. Plenty of times he saw someone from afar that he thought may have been The Girl, but it never turned out to be her. Finally he stopped one of the Waerd that he spied wearing similar rings to those he remembered The Girl wearing. He asked this one if they knew of a newcomer named Hashwana, but the student’s answer was strange. “Only the Waerd are here.” Pasher walked away bewildered. As he had spoken to the young student, he was suddenly overcome with the notion that he couldn't be sure if he was speaking to a boy or a girl of the Waerd just then, or even if such distinctions mattered. His head swam.

Pasher waited for one of The Waerd to finish an oration and asked if they had heard of a new excisemann named Hashwana, and this one just chuckled and said the same as the first. “Here, you will find only The Waerd.” Pasher described The Girl then, and the Waerd laughed and spread dark hands wide, saying “Who here does not look as you say?” The Waerd leaned toward him then and said knowingly “Though if the Waerd wears rings, the Waerd has not yet joined the consulate; and if we have joined the consulate, then we have given up a name and the jewelry both. Go on, a Neran Victor will not find the heart’s desire here, only the Waerd.”

Pasher found Sterks at the bar a few days later.

“Somehow she’s just gone.” Pasher lamented over his drink. “It's like she was never even here.”

“You know I can’t tell those Waerd apart,” his friend belched, “I hardly even recognized you in that getup.”

Pasher looked down at himself, unsure, while Sterks continued. “Why are you wearing that anyway?”

Pasher answered slowly. “Well, it’s to show that I was Tested.” Quickly, he added “They called me Victor!”

Sterks raised an eyebrow. “You mean you won?”

“I…” Pasher hesitated, “I think so?”

“Some prize…” Sterks drawled, “a robe and a broken heart?” The Neran spit on the sawdust floor, “I’ll pass.”

Pasher hesitated, remembering the chants, the chanqanf, and the advice of Ostletrush on the boat. “I feel like I took more away than that.” He wondered if the tall Waerd youth had given his name up as well. If he saw him here, would he recognize the Waerd at all? It occurred to him that he might have mistaken everything about the Trials he had just returned from. Pasher was suddenly very uncomfortable in his robes.

Sterks barked his short laugh. “Face it Pash, your girl is a ghost, and your so-called trial was the dance of a Waerd mystic. Praise the Virtues, you’re lucky to have gotten out alive!” Sterks upended his ale and finished the draught. “Now, take that thing off and let’s go find you a nice Neran lass that speaks your language. The night is young!”

And Pasher had to admit, maybe this time Sterks was right.