The hunter's patience came to fruition, as was fitting and proper in nature's balance. He watched the westerner dropping from boulder to boulder in the twilight between the trees, avoiding the pathway down. He knew the way his quarry must now come and moved with all his skill to intercept. The hunter's bow was strung, the string newly rosined. He had seen to the fletching on his strongest flight-arrows. Caution was indispensable if this student had attained even a small measure of his masters' art. Of course, a sword could not outreach an arrow.

The westerner moved with admirable grace for so large a creature. No one pursued him. Could the jiijanni be blind to their pupil's truancy?

He allowed the westerner to pass, then followed easily at his back, down Old Man Mountain and through the Teak Wood, certain of his quarry's direction: the rice-paddies waiting below. The westerner paused now and again to listen. Impressively, he listened with more than his ears, but never the less seemed not to notice his pursuer. These jiijanni and their prodigy were not so aware as legend would have it, then.

The sun had set when they reached the spring, the hunter and his prey. A girl-shape awaited the Bearman there, just as the hunter had expected. Tass of the rice paddies-his nephew's betrothed. He recognized her form and the way she moved.

Tass and the westerner embraced, melted together in the darkness, then suddenly separated. The girl's voice rose in protest in the empty night. The westerner reached for her hand. She turned her back. He hung his head and turned to go, and she ran to him. They held each other, then parted. He backed away.

When he was out of sight, the girl dropped to her knees. Her face descended into her hands.

So! Forbidden trysts outside his race, compounded by cruelty. The girl was ruined, with or without consummation. The westerner would pay for his effrontery--perhaps an accident on his way back up the mountain. The hunter would act in behalf of his people, accepting the personal cost.

But the westerner did not retrace his steps. Instead, he took to the narrow, rock-strewn paths leading west along the ridge. The westerner was leaving the valley. He had no intention of returning to the temple. How fortuitous! The jiijanni would not be pleased with their cub. Nor would they miss him.

Above the village, the westerner paused, peering down at the riverside collection of huts and wharfs, granaries and stockade. The circle of bonfires in the center of the village had caught his eye, and the stakes in their midst. Did he recognize the temple servants impaled upon them as a warning to those who would cross the temple masters? Did he see the justice of his masters? Not from this height. He moved on, descending the ridge and making his way down Jade River.

At midnight, they came to a fisherman's jetty, Vil's, as he recalled. The westerner untied the fisherman's skiff. The hunter watched from the tall weeds at river's edge, placing an arrow on his string. He would have to retrieve his arrow and weight the body.

The westerner stepped into the skiff and pushed off with practiced ease. He found the pole and began working the skiff through the shallows.

The hunter drew his bowstring back to his ear, about to take a great liberty in the hope of balance restored.

"No," came a whisper in his ear.

The hunter cringed. Turned. Stumbled back.

The jiijanni put a finger to his lips. The hunter had been hunted along with his prey. And neither of them aware of it!

With trembling hands, he placed his bow and his arrows in parallel lines before the priest, then prostrated himself at his feet.

The Grand Master stepped over the hunter and walked to the end of the jetty. A gold coin, a Panthian dallian worth more than three skiffs, lay atop a piling. The youth had always been honorable. Woo Ling clicked his tongue. There was little justice in the world. "He may well be a dead man," said the jiijanni, addressing the hunter without deigning to turn. "But he is mine."

Jorgan Anderson poled the skiff down stream through the remaining hours of darkness. By dawn, he had passed well below Po's fishing grounds, and by nightfall the last of its outlying farms. Before him, Teak Valley widened beneath the stars as its hills dropped into the Hendian plain. A few more leagues, and he'd be out of the valley, halfway to Neshipah where his parents were due on the last leg of their summer trade route.

Exhausted, he spotted a pebbly shore at the mouth of a tributary, sheltered by tall, dense grass. He beached the skiff and tied it to a whitened log.

It was cold for late summer. He made a small fire out of driftwood and huddled close to it in his cloak, with his back to the Mystic Mountains and his face to the sea away in the west where the sun sank, flaming the cloudy sky a deep red.

He fished through his small bundle of belongings, found the half-eaten ball of rice and swallowed it in two bites. He searched for the salted fish-strip, the last of his food, and then remembered eating it a few hours earlier while poling. There was time enough. He'd sleep late tomorrow and fish before continuing on.

For now, he would stay awake, tend the fire long enough to get warm, and spend time in prayer. He bowed his head, disciplining himself not to sleep. Not...to...

His eyes snapped open. He sprang to his feet, jiitaana instantly on guard before him.

"Well done!" said Woo Ling. But he was not smiling. He sat cross-legged on the other side of Jorgan's dying fire.

"You startled me," said Jorgan with a short laugh at his own expense. He sheathed his jiitaana. The sun was up over the Mystic Mountains. He'd slept straight through the night! "How long have you been here?" Why was he here? To talk him into coming back? What a compliment, that the Grand Master himself should do that! Or had he merely come to say goodbye?

"You departed without leave, Warrior."

Jorgan slumped. A courageous man would have been courteous enough to face Master Ly and the Assembled Swordmasters and clearly state his reasons for leaving Ty Shing--the One's witness, no matter the cost. "Forgive me. It was time to move on and-" Jorgan noticed that the skiff was gone. Its mooring line still hung from the log.

"I have come to take you back."

Woo Ling's tone staggered him. Take him back? Why? Was it a matter of honor? Had he somehow disgraced the Grand Master? "I can't return with you, Woo Ling. I'm sorry, but you see-"

"I understand your reasons for leaving better than you think," said the Grand Master. "And, unlike my fellow swordmasters, do not suspect you of spying from the outset."

"Spying?" What?

"You have acquired knowledge previously granted to no westerner. Ty Shing covets its knowledge, as does the emperor we serve."

"I can keep secrets like the sea."

"No matter. Your sword speaks for itself."

"I have been a loyal student."

"Some things in life are not so easily left at one's heel."

"I was not aware I had agreed to-"

"Everything in life comes with a price, warrior."

"I am a free man."

Ly shook his head, sadly. "No. You are not. And neither am I. We are each subject to the kala hassa and our duty."

He was not subject to fate! He was subject to the One and to Him alone. "Where's my skiff?"

Woo Ling examined his jiitaana's pommel. "I had hoped you would be Grand Master after me. Your behavior is a great disappointment."

What sort of madness was this? "You can't force me to study in Ty Shing."

"True. Learning cannot be forced. However, I am duty bound to return with at least part of you."

Woo Ling Ly rose, unsheathing his jiitaana in a fluid motion that brought its point to Jorgan's throat across the embers. Jorgan swallowed hard against the sword point and it pricked the skin of his throat.

His mind reeled. Was Ly serious? Or was this a test of some sort? A final test of his skill and prowess? If so, the Grand Master would of course have to be convincing. He certainly was that--disturbingly so!

He had to calm down. Never fight angry, they had taught him. Fight? Had it really come to this? "I want to know where you hid my skiff! Right now!"

The Grand Master squared his shoulders resignedly and sank in his stance, preparing to lunge. He spoke with confounding patience, his jiitaana's point unwaveringly attached to Jorgan's throat. "Surely you do not wish to die, warrior, despite your convictions. However," he tilted his head in the Far Eastern gesture of acceptance of one's own fate, "the choice is yours."

In answer, Jorgan dodged aside, drew his jiitaana and parried the Grand Master's instantaneous thrust, all in one swift motion. He leaped aside again, placing as much distance as he could between them, as quickly as he could.

This was insane! He had longed to cross swords with the Grand Master to test his skill. But not like this! Good as he was, he had no hope of living through a real sword fight with his teacher--his former teacher, he reminded himself.

"Warrior. Do not do this thing to yourself." This was a test. But not of the Grand Master's design! "Come back with me now and all will be as it was."

"Impossible," Jorgan answered, though the word would be the death of him. His heart raced violently, but he controlled his breathing and relaxed as he had been taught. He watched the master's chest for sign of attack.

Woo Ling Ly exhaled--his familiar sigh. "Perhaps you are correct. All can never be as it was in a living, ever-changing cosmos. So be it." He attacked with the speed of thought.

The engagement was short, the strikes and parries multitudinous. Jorgan, continually off balance, barely managed to deflect the Grand Master's cuts. They separated, both unscathed--a miracle.

"I have greatly underestimated you," commented the Grand Master. "Despite having supervised your training." Not a single drop of perspiration had formed on his forehead.

Jorgan, surprised to be alive, perspired like a wrung sponge. Twice, he'd witnessed Woo Ling in a life and death sword fight. Each had ended in a single cut.

Again they engaged, swords sweeping and thrusting faster than the eye could follow. Jorgan's footwork kept the fire between them.

Then the inevitable. The Grand Master's jiitaana passed Jorgan's guard, leaving a crimson line across the youth's jaw. The cut would have been deeper had Jorgan not moved his head with the strike.

He did not pause or feel pain as the cold steel pulled his flesh. He continued desperately parrying the Grand Master's strikes even as warm blood flowed down his jaw, and, moments later, the pain. More than physical pain, for Jorgan had called Woo Ling--friend.

He kicked pebbles and burning embers at the Grand Master's face. The old swordmaster nimbly sidestepped. They paused in twin stances that presented minimal target area to each other, jiitaanas on guard.

"Warrior, you fight like a westerner."

Jorgan shrugged, breathing heavily, heart pounding madly. His sword-skill was of no use against this man. He was facing death. And he was badly frightened, though not of death itself, he was surprised to note. He would resist to the full extent of his ability, so there would be much pain before the end. That he feared.

Once more they came together, jiitaanas dancing in unison. The Grand Master maneuvered Jorgan away from the fire, backing him toward the sun-bleached log despite his counter-footwork. The jiitaana cut him three more times in quick succession--arm, thigh, chest-each deeper than the last. Jorgan fell backward over the log. Blood oozed from long thin lines, staining his sliced tunic in wide swathes.

"You were the most promising," whispered the Grand Master, raising his sword.

Jorgan rolled aside as the blade sliced through pebbles, and came to his feet. The riverbank pitched and rolled like a ship's deck on the ocean's swells. He would not survive the next exchange. He'd lost too much blood.

The Grand Master positioned his jiitaana, a serpent poised to strike.

Perspiration rolled into Jorgan's eyes, blurring his vision. My God! Help me!

A gull cried overhead, bringing with it memories of home, family--safety. Never again would he stand upon Sea Horse's deck.

Nothing happened.

Jorgan chanced a blink to clear his vision.

The Grand Master held his stance, jiitaana poised for the death-cut. Jorgan thought he saw respect in the Grand Master's eyes. And fondness? Then a wave of confusion washed Woo Ling's countenance--an emotion normally foreign to him--replaced, finally, by resolution.

"I may have been wrong," said Woo Ling.

"Wrong?" Jorgan stammered. He had never expected to hear such words from the Grand Master's lips.

"Perhaps some lives are best left at one's heel. Even the life of a Grand Master." He cleansed his jiitaana of Jorgan's blood with a tyii ban pass and gracefully sheathed it.

Jorgan blinked again in amazement. Then the full import of his words sank in. What had he done to Woo Ling? "Come with me. To Sea Horse. To the Northland."

Ty Shing's Grand Master of the Sword Dance smiled, then bowed, the polite full bow of the Far East, turned abruptly on his heel, and strode off, vanishing into the tall grass.

Jorgan dropped like an anchor and sat staring down stream. Was that it? Was he now free of Ty Shing? Would he ever be? Soon he would sail off the edge of the world.

He could not let that happen.

By sheer force of will he reached for his pack, found the jar of salve, and stanched his bleeding.

He glanced around, still wondering.

It took all his strength to get his feet under him and rise.

He looked back at Old Man Mountain. He looked downriver, in the direction of the sea. He considered the sword in his hand. "Double edged," he realized.

And managed, one step at a time, to walk out of the valley.

(c) 2002
By G. K. Werner
All Rights Reserved

Mr. Werner is a Christian who teaches eighth grade language arts and college English, as well as history and martial arts. He writes fiction from a Biblical persepective as a hobby. "Testing the Mettle" is a stand-alone story drawn from his currently unpublished novel, The Sword and the Way.