Part 21 (1/2)

Chapter 5.

Scaling the Heights

Over the next six months, I conducted the most torrid non-affair I had ever engaged in.

As I expected, nothing more than looks and smiles and even the occasional polite chuckle was required to satisfy the Imperior that his daughter was performing her designated duties in terms of keeping me s.e.xually challenged. Meantime, a couple of times a week I would go during the evening to the chambers of the princess. After our first ”non-encounter,” I actually entered her rooms on all my subsequent visits. We would always make sure to extinguish the lights so our shadows would not betray our activities against the door.

And we would talk. Just.

Talk.

It wasn't as if I'd never spent time talking to a female before. During a long hard winter, I'd been forced to share close quarters with Entipy, and we had discussed various things back then. But most of them centered around how poorly treated she'd been by her parents, and how everyone thought her insane, which wasn't really fair, even though if one asked me, I would have been the first to say she was half a dozen arrows short of a quiver.

It was different with Mitsu.

To start with, there was no question of s.e.x.

It wasn't that she wasn't attractive. For that matter, it wasn't that I wasn't intrigued. And she certainly seemed accommodating enough. There was every possibility that, had I expressed interest, she would have been willing.

But I didn't. Because, despite the casual way in which the Chinpanese seemed to treat it, for me s.e.x would have changed things. And I didn't want to change them, because I was becoming quite taken with getting to know a woman as simply a woman.

As the weeks pa.s.sed and we carried on our sustained non-affair, I found Mitsu to be by turns acerbic, funny, melancholy, wise, foolish... the entire gamut of human emotions. There seemed to be nothing missing from her. She was a whole person, with no one aspect of her personality--such as, say, a delight in seeing things burn--consuming the rest of her.

We spoke about a vast array of topics, and I slowly began to realize just how long it was since I had had a friend. A nice, simple friend. Someone who had never wanted to kill me. Someone I had never screwed, in any sense of the word. Even the decent villagers of Hosbiyu, I had never really thought of them as ”friends.” I had been friendly toward them, but I had never been able to escape the knowledge that, in so many ways, I was different from them.

With Mitsu, I didn't feel that difference. We established a relaxed rapport. Far too relaxed to risk it with anything as potentially complicated as intercourse.

Besides, it was quite obvious to me that, even though he was gone from her life, Mitsu still had strong feelings for the nameless boy from the marketplace. ”You know what?” I said to her at one point.

”Judging by the way things usually seem to transpire in my life, your missing love is off on some great quest even as we speak. He is embarking upon wondrous challenges and ordeals and will, eventually, return with great wealth to claim your hand in marriage.”

”You spin lovely fantasies, Apropos,” she told me.

”I have no time for fantasies,” I replied. ”My real life is bizarre enough.”

Although Mitsu didn't teach me a d.a.m.ned thing about s.e.x, she did teach me other things, such as some of the various hand-to-hand combat techniques I'd seen her display. Naturally I couldn't hope to match her agility, or even come close to it. But she started showing me what she called ”forms” in which I would make various movements again and again and again, swinging my arms, sweeping my hands intoblocking positions, repeating other gestures which all seemed almost random and more like dance than anything resembling self-defense.

Still, once she would show me the basics of the forms themselves, she would then challenge me to try and strike her. It was not a task I undertook lightly. I wasn't in the habit of hitting people I liked. Then again, I hadn't liked all that many people in my life, so I was very much exploring new territory. I needn't have concerned myself, however. For every time I did try to connect with her, she would brush my fist away and counterstrike using one of the techniques I had been practicing. In this way, I slowly began to see how these ”forms” were clever means of perfecting ways of defending oneself.

I couldn't help but think that these were some of the techniques that Chinpan Ali was in the process of showing me. Unfortunately, he had died in the midst of endeavoring to do so, so I would never know the specifics of what he'd wanted to show me. Mitsu, however, was a perfectly decent teacher. I certainly hoped that she wouldn't wind up being killed as well.

I did not see much of Go Nogo during that time. I didn't feel that to be much of a hards.h.i.+p. No doubt he was out there endeavoring to destroy the Forked Tong. More power to him. I was busy spending my evenings with a charming princess while learning new and interesting ways to not die.

Still, there was one image, one moment that I was not able to erase from my mind. An instance of heartlessness that didn't seem in keeping with the caring, thoughtful young woman I'd gotten to know.

One night Mitsu was even able to tell that it was preying upon me, and asked me what I was thinking about.

”That young woman,” I said. She looked at me blankly, and I elaborated, ”The one who killed herself.

The one you singled out...”

”Oh. Her,” said Mitsu, obviously recalling. ”What about her?”

”Why her? Why did you pick out that girl? Had she done something to offend you? Angered you in some way?”

Mitsu was clearly surprised. ”No, of course not. She was my favorite handmaiden.”

”Your favorite?” I couldn't comprehend it. ”And yet you chose her to be the one to end her life?”

”Poor Apropos,” sighed Mitsu, and she actually looked sorry for me. She reached over and ruffled my hair. ”You truly still don't comprehend. I didn't sacrifice her. I venerated her. To die in order to maintain the integrity of your master's or mistress's honor... there is no greater reward for distinguished service than that.”

”I don't understand.”

”It is because,” she said sadly, ”you do not truly understand honor.”

”No, I understand it. I just don't understand dying because of it.”

She shrugged. ”Perhaps,” she told me, ”someday you will.”

Mordant showed only the most casual interest in what I was doing with my time. Most nights when I returned he either wasn't in the room at all, or else was hidden away in some convenient nook andsleeping. Truthfully, I couldn't figure out why he was hanging about. Mordant, however, didn't exactly have a history of being forthcoming under normal circ.u.mstances, and this was no exception.

Then, one day, the Imperior came to me. More than six months had pa.s.sed, and he was anxious to see how his workers were doing. ”We are going to go out ourselves to check their progress,” he informed me.

This p.r.o.nouncement didn't exactly sit well with me. ”Imperior, it has only been six months. I doubt that they have managed to build all that much...”

The Imperior waggled a finger at me. ”Are you questioning my word?” he inquired.

Well, I certainly knew better than to fall into that one. ”Absolutely not, Imperior.”

”That's excellent,” he said, and appeared to be visibly relieved. Yes, a very strange one, the Imperior.

With added cheer, he said, ”How far do you think they've gotten?”

”I... don't know, Imperior. I'm sure they have accomplished as much as is humanly possible.”

”That,” he said, and here came the waggling finger once more, ”is never enough. It is necessary for all creatures to do more than is humanly possible. Only then can we hope to become what the G.o.ds want us to be.”

I did what I always did when I wasn't sure what the Imperior was talking about: I nodded. I tended to nod a lot.

That evening, I informed Mitsu that I would not be around for the next few days, and explained why.

Her brow clouded. ”That,” she said slowly, ”is unfortunate.”

”Why?” I didn't like the sound of that. ”Why unfortunate?”

”Because anything can happen when it comes to my father. Just... be careful, Apropos.” She rubbed my shoulders, drew my head forward, and placed her forehead against my own. ”I would miss you if you died.”