6 Kim

Kim enjoyed getting lost in the rapture of the voice weighing upon her, the poetry of the Master’s words, the force of her oratory, the appeal of her logic—which always seduced. It was fascinating, commiserating on concepts that were at once affecting and baffling.  She wondered how someone could find truck in some overarching Being that ordered Creation. Such an idea was foreign to her, but not to many who came to the School. But there were also deeper layers of meaning in Master Lisa’s deliberations that went beyond a Demiurge and struck right at the heart of power and privilege.

“. . . the Demiurge does not govern the world. She does not reign, dolling out largess with one hand while subtracting with the other. However, some people believe this, believe that the world is governed by sigils and signs, prodigies and marvels.” She forestalled the bemused faced objections with a quickly raised hand. “I do not mean that signs and sigils are not a testament to power’s manifestation, or that there are not prodigies that defy all logic or expectation. But for all that, even prodigies and marvels, sigil and signs are governed by specific, recognizable principles that are ordered by the Source. We only have to understand them.”  

She walked the span of the raised dais, blackboard forgotten. Her pacing was an indication of her enthusiasm, her engagement with her subject, and her students. Another indication was her voice. Though it did not waver in pitch, her inflection did, becoming more precise and animated. “It takes time for change to take. And even then, some will still subscribe to superstition and ritual. Swayed by comfort and ease, they scoff at the idea that men should govern and be governed by laws where no man stands above another because of birth or status.” She paused, catching all eyes up in a glance that surveyed the whole of the room. “In a world governed by reason and order, each man governs himself according to established laws and customs to which even a prince and sovereign are also subject. No one stands above another. Governance is neutral and in the best interests of the commonweal rather than one man’s own private interests.”

      Hands quickly rose, but she directed her regard to one in particular, whose hand dropped at her recognition. Shin came from the Middle Kingdom with their ancient heritage and deep ways. He kept much to himself and no one knew, or would say, what brought him to such a far distant land.

“There are those that don’t keep the principles you champion and believe the interests of the sovereign and society are the same. There is an old proverb from The Book of Heaven that says, “Whoever uses the large to serve the small delights in Heaven. Whoever uses the small to serve the large fears Heaven. If you delight in Heaven, you nurture all beneath Heaven. If you fear Heaven, you nurture your own interests.” When Shin finished, he looked around waiting for someone to comment. When he saw no one would respond, he continued.

“Though we may not like it or believe in it, Heaven orders all beneath its ceiling. If we but follow the path set down for us by Heaven, then the world is ordered and all things to their station attain because the interests of the sovereign and the people are the same.”

Still no comment. Maybe they did not understand, thought Shin. He lowered his head so they could not see his cutting smile, but Kim saw. “Simply, I believe that the world is ordered by something greater than us. Whether that be a Demiurge, Natural Law, or All Things Under Heaven, something makes this work.” Entreating them to his point, Shin spread wide his arms as if to capture the obviousness of it all. 

Master Lisa nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. “Another way to think of it is that an unjust sovereign sees the people within her territory, or territories, as a means to the maintenance of her territory, while a just sovereign sees the maintenance of her people as the most important of resources, thus preserving them and their well being.”

“Then, there are not many states that follow that mandate.” The statement prompted chuckles from some and frowns from others who saw no humor in sarcastic words or the sly implication in Shin’s words of the others’ naiveté.

Shin’s rejoinder was to cite nations under heaven who pursued a just accord with their people, names familiar to many in the room. Not to be out off, Joshton made a quip which Martine quickly refuted. The back and forth developed into factions and the discussion became more focused, if no less pointed. Removed from leading the discussion gave Master Lisa the opportunity to study her students as they debated one another. As her gaze swept the room taking in their passion or reserve, their cynicism or mocking disdain, a little touch of disappointment began to taint her thoughts. Kim did not take part in the discussion, which she could have so easily commanded.

Kim did not find the other voices compelling or challenging, and her thoughts had drifted toward mosaics, music, the upcoming dance, and Malcolm.

Kim moved hurriedly, robes swaying as she charged hurriedly through the corridors of the School. The thoughts clouding her mind made her unaware of the indulgent glances by the Masters that followed in her wake, or the amused smiles of others in her cohort. She was well liked by all, and no one had an unfavorable impression of her.

How could they. A ready smile and considerate word were always close to her lips. Sometimes distracted, her mind was sharp and quick. Somewhat bookish, she spent many hours sitting in the hidden alcoves of the library with its high, crowded rows of books. She enjoyed being immersed in the smell of leather, running a finger down the spine of a book, the dry, rustle of turning vellum. The weight of time and tomb and history. This love of books was another trait she and Master Lisa shared. But now books were the last thing on her mind. She was anxious to see Malcolm.

Everyone considered them a mismatched pair. Her outgoing, personable manner in contrast to his wall of reserve that rarely allowed anyone too close. Kim, though, had broken through, stripped him of that cool reserve, stripped the robes from his body. But there were times when not even the warmth of her regard could dispel the cold distance that wreathed his heart in melancholy humors. These moods were coming more often and were more pronounced in how they turned his character.

Her way took her deep into the labyrinthine maze of tunnels, most barred and still to be explored, until only her footfalls echoed. None, other than Masters or those given dispensation, ventured deep into the mountain. The passages seemed to compel forgetfulness, and one could wander into places that held strange power. Some had been lost to those powers. But it was the Mage’s calling to seek understanding, but within reason. Curiosity and desire had to be balanced beside caution and wariness. However, sometimes, one outweighed the other.

Kim came to a room twelve paces deep and twelve wide. The ceiling was high, a deeper shadow where the lamplight could not pierce. And the walls, where the shifting light lit one wall and then another, gleamed as if just polished. There was no dust when the room had been first discovered, and there was no dust now.

She leaned against the arched entryway and studied Malcolm who was crouched over a design in the floor. He had strong angular features, with a somewhat shallow chin and too wide nose. His eyes, hidden now because his head was bent forward, were his most arresting feature. They shaded from slate gray to light blue depending on his shifting mood, but when he was with Kim, they were always light blue. Something that delighted her. When he was with her, Malcolm’s thoughts were not focused on those dim, sorrowful memories that clung to him like a shadow.

She wondered what color they were now. She had seen him like this before. So lost in some thought that he lost track of what was happening around him. So lost that he had not noted her arrival.

Stepping into the room she asked, “What is it this time?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, never looking up. “It’s like a gentle hum of sound or a soft caress licking at the edges of my mind.”

“Last time you said it was a feeling at once hot and then cold,” she said, dampening her irritation and desire to shake him from his distraction.

Crouching before Malcolm, she traced the pattern of one of the flower designs with her finger. The mosaic was undoubtedly very old, but still pristine, the jointure still very tight and the colors vibrant.

The pattern was alien: a giant circle where the radius of the circle touched all four walls. Within its circumference, small, evenly spaced circles overlapped within to form a six-fold symmetry, like a hexagon, where the center of each circle was on the circumference of six surrounding circles of the same diameter, giving it the appearance of an open flower. The gaps within the circumference of the larger circle made by the six points of the overlapping hexagonal smaller circles were of brown, while the flower-like geometry of design within the smaller circle was of gold and the gaps surrounding the “petals” of the flower were of green. Few new what that geometry of design was called the Flower of Life, and those few who did had not yet seen it.

“The beauty of the design alone is enough to capture the imagination,” she said.

“Yes, it is beautiful.”

Reaching out to place her finger under his chin, she drew his head up. His eyes were light blue.

“What about my beauty?”

A wide smile lit his face. “It is unparalleled,” he replied.

“I want you to take me to the dance,” she said.

 smile vanished. His attention, now, was properly captured. He tried to hide the affect her words had on him, but she knew him well enough to recognize his reaction. Dread, discomfort, trepidation, were all present. He may be smart, talented, and sure of himself, but Kim knew he was still a callow boy who needed to be led.

When she took her hand from his chin his gaze fell, but not because of the tile on the floor. “I was . . . hoping  . . . not to go,” he said in a halting, stuttering voice. 

 “Why?”

“You know I don’t like those kind of things.”

“I know you don’t. But I do,” she said softly, letting her eyes fall to the mosaic.

The pattern was coercive, hard to ignore. “Yes, I can just feel it too, a quivering along the fine hairs of spine and groin.”

A bark of mocking laughter came unbidden form Malcolm. “I don’t think it’s the mosaic doing that.”

She frowned. Such a stupid boy. He could be so uncouth sometime. He would have to pay for that, but for now, it was her turn to lose herself in the tile. Tracing the pattern with her feet, flowing, tipping, and twirling along its lines, Kim pulled Malcolm into her arms, into the silent twirl and flow of some ancient power beyond the mosaic pattern.

After leaving Malcolm, Kim was to be found in Master Lisa’s room sipping tea as Master Lisa arranged orange, white, and purple flowers in a large pink vase sitting atop the polished veneer of a small guéridon table.

The room was a potpourri of scents, a mixture of pine and lilac, cinnamon and peppermint, lavender and orange. The onslaught of scents conjoined and mingled in a disparate palate that doused the air with their fragrance. Kim liked this particular arrangement of scent and color. Sometimes Master Lisa’s pieces overpowered her senses leaving her with a headache.

It was not an inexpensive hobby. Some of the flowers did not grow well in these higher climes, and required diligence and care to survive, whereas others could not be grown in the School’s conservatory at all and had to be ported or purchased at a premium.

“Someone once said, ‘To retain justice in big things it is sometimes necessary to turn away from it in small things,’” Master Lisa said as she placed a flower in the vase.

Kim weighed here response as she placed her cup on the matching saucer atop the table. Instruction never seemed to end. It was an obsession among the Masters. 

“Who said that?”

“Why? Is that important?” Master Lisa asked, as she adjusted the flowers and the fronds to get the best effect.

“It may not be, but it may give better insight into a reason and purpose for the remark.”

“If I tell you, you will not recognize the name.”

“Nevertheless. . . .”

“It was Charron.”

“You are right.”

“As I knew.” She smiled to take the sting out of her rebuke. “He was a man who debated the merits and responsibility of power, its scope and duty. Someone I knew some time ago,” her voice softened on the latter, became more reflective.

“The statement seems to have more to do with statecraft, than with responsibilities of power.”

“And do you think statecraft has nothing to do with power? Power has more shapes than what we do here. In many respects, we are a lesser expression of power.”

“You know, Master Lisa, philosophy is not one of my strengths.”

Master Lisa laughed. “Yes, I know. How do you think it looks to the other Masters when my subditus does not do well in all the classes I teach.”

Kim gave a chagrined smile.

“But you are right, Charron focused on the workings of the state, its bureaucracies and not the use of power from the Source.”

“But even so, is not turning away from any act of justice corrupting?” Kim asked, returning to the original question.

“Even if a small act of corruption may save the lives of many at the expense of a few?”

Kim was confused by the direction of the conversation. The School taught that admitting a small act of power’s misuse led to corruption; and guarding against such misuse in all things was a Mage’s Duty. Though no on was foolish enough to believe that such perfection was wholly attainable. They were after all human, flesh and spirit. But being a Mage was to understand that flesh and spirit were to be mastered.  

“Then, does not our responsibility weigh heavier than it does for a prince or a king? I say this for no conceit in our power but because the past misuse of our abilities has made it so.”

“You know the answer to that,” Master Lisa said, sifting among the flowers atop the table. She pulled a bright, vibrant purple carnation forth, snipped its ends and placed it in the vase.

“What do you think?” she asked, turning the vase for Kim’s inspection.

Kim still did not know how to respond. She had been asked the same question many times before. Sometimes her answer was heeded, sometimes not. She did not wish to offend but always replied truthfully.

“I thought it to be a simple question,” Master Lisa said.

“It is.”

“Then, what do you think?”

“To which question?”

“I did not know there was another question pending.”

Is there, Kim pondered? “The best view comes from the fullness of the single purple carnation surrounded by the more delicate white roses and orange tulips with the variegated leaves clustered around the rim.” 

Master Lisa did not respond but turned the vase so that that side face Kim.

“And the other question?” Master Lisa said, sitting in a chair across from Kim and to one side of the vase so that her view of Kim was not obscured. She looked over the edge of the teacup she sipped from as she waited for Kim to respond.

“Sometimes I am sure of the answer,” Kim said musingly, “until we have conversations such as these and you try to confuse the matter.”

Master Lisa’s laughter, lilting and full, filled the room. “With who your father is, I think the answer would be obvious.”

“He does for honor, and duty, and land.” She found it hard to keep the heat from her voice, even as she knew she should show no reaction. She was expected to not let old attachments linger, but it was hard, so very hard.

“Yes, he does, Kim. No one doubts that. But for those who pay for his sword, do you they believe the same?”

“Must everything be a lesson, a discourse on ethics and responsibility,” Kim said exasperated, rising stiffly from her seat.

“Kim, your whole life, if you pass your Testing, will be a reflection of what you are taught here and the image what you carry into the world.”

“I do not know if I can bear the weight of it.”

“That is a question I am to determine and has little to do with you.” Her eyes studied Kim over the rim of her cup. “So far you have proven capable of bearing much upon those slender shoulders.”

Kim lips twisted into an imitation of a smile. What had she ever had to bear? Her father’s skills as a general were valued by other nations and his remittance did much to prop his class and state, and until coming to the School, her life had been one of luxury and ease while her father was off fighting wars for whomever offered the most coin.

She knew very little of resentment or hardship until she had come to the School and had seen how others lived: those not as fortunate as she. It had been a hard adjustment for her, made more so because she no longer had her family to fall back on when she doubted herself. She understood somewhat why they had sent her to the School for training rather than the Academe. How much greater would the resentment be from those who had directly felt the brunt of her father’s mercenary arm.

As if reading her thoughts, which she could have if Kim allowed, Master Lisa said, “Some give over more than others when they come to us. It is to them that the choice and the Testing are harder, but it is also to them that greatness, sometimes, attends because of the marrow of what they have surrendered.” She sat down her empty cup. “Enough of this! It is time for training, subditus.”

Kim relaxed her mind and surrendered to the ki flowing around and between them.