Emily's House (The Akasha Chronicles) (19 page)

“You trained to be a warrior as a child?”

“No, of course not! Girls were not allowed. Madame Wong snuck in and watched her brothers train,” she said as she continued swinging her sword around in wide arcs and practiced thrusting her blade forward.

“Choose your blade,” she said as she gestured to the wall opposite her, filled too with weapons of all kinds and shapes.

“Oh, I don’t think so. Hindergog told us of your fighting skills. I’m not fighting you!”

“How you learn if you not try? Come Miss Emily, I teach you the ways of the true warrior,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Yes, long time since Madame Wong teach a warrior. Good day this will be,” she said.

She was going to take pleasure in kicking my butt!

I didn’t know what kind of weapon I needed or how to choose. I inspected them all and finally settled on a broadsword with a handle wrapped in black leather and a curved, shiny steel blade with intricate carvings of a dragon etched into it.

I picked it up, and despite the fact that I’d built up quite a bit of upper body strength wielding an axe at the woodpile, it still was so heavy that I almost dropped it. I teetered a little as I tried to hold it out in front of me, gripping the handle with both hands.

“That one too heavy for Miss Emily?”

“I’ll be alright,” I said. “Just need to get used to it.”

“Best to be used to it now,” she said as she sprung into the air, did a somersault and then landed in front of me, brandishing her ancient looking blade. I reacted as quickly as I could and tried to use my sword to deflect her, but her blade caught a bit of flesh at my ankle.

“You should block my attempt to cut you,” she said.

“Really?” I said as I gripped my ankle. My hand was covered in blood. “Son of. . . You cut me!”

“Real warrior fights through pain,” she said.

“Yeah? Well I’m not a real warrior now, am I? I’ve got to do something about this wound, or I’m going to bleed to death.”

“No need worry about blood. Ready for battle,” she said as she held her sword horizontally in front of her face, her legs planted and ready to go again.

“Look, I’m not like you, okay. I’m a real person – flesh and blood. So yeah, I’ve got to bandage this cut up so I don’t bleed out.”

“What cut? Miss Emily not bleeding.”

“What. . .” I looked down, and my ankle was fine, not a scratch on me. It wasn’t even covered in dried blood. It was like Madame Wong’s blade had never touched me.

“What the hell? You cut me. I know you did.”

“Cut? Maybe. Wound no more.”

“But how?”

“This is Netherworld. Now ready yourself,” she said as she backed up a few paces, planted right foot in front and left behind, then raised her sword in her right hand above her, her left hand out straight in front.

I moved out from the wall and toward the center, all the while keeping my eyes on wily Madame Wong. When we were about twenty feet apart from each other, I planted my feet like Madame Wong’s and put my arms in the same position. The blade I had chosen was super heavy. My arm wobbled just holding it there.

“Remember what you have learned Miss Emily. Focus. Aware.”

I tried to do as she said and focused on her sword, tuning everything else out.

“I don’t know anything about this, you know. I never took fencing in school, and I wasn’t exactly on the medieval knight team. What am I supposed to do?”

“Try not to die,” was her only reply as she flew through the air, did a somersault then kicked me in the chest so hard I flew backward about ten feet, landing flat on my back. She landed gently on the ground at my feet.

“That’s not fair! You can fly.”

“Miss Emily can fly too.”

“In case you didn’t notice, I don’t have wings.”

“Madame Wong has no wings.”

“Yeah but you’re. . . not human.”

“Form of entity of no matter. Intention what matters. You want to fly, you fly. Focus on what you want Miss Emily, not on what you don’t want. Focus on the doing, not the failing. Ready?”

I got up and took the stance. It was like a showdown in the old west. Both of us staring at each other neither making a move. The silence grew to the point that heard my blood rushing through my veins.

If I had been watching with my eyes, I would have seen nothing. If I had been listening with my ears, I would not have heard a sound. But in the focused awareness that Madame Wong had taught me, I felt her coming.

I thought of flying away to the other side of the room, and I pushed off with the toes of my front foot. I sprang into the air effortlessly. I spun myself head over heels several times then gently landed facing her. I think I saw Madame Wong’s lips curl into a small smile, a twinkle in her eye.

But there were no words of adulation or praise, only her little body coming at me, swinging her sword in tight figure eights as she gently glided forward across the grey tile floor. It was like watching a mini combine coming for me, the only sound the swoosh of her sword like a wind turbine.

I took to the air once more, and as I turned mid-air to land facing her, I saw that she, too, had taken to the air and was right behind me. I reacted quickly enough to fend off a blow from her sword, and we were locked in battle, mid-air.

We came down with a thud as our weapons continued to clang against each other. I was working hard just to keep her from chopping my arm off. Madame Wong looked like she was hardly putting forth any effort at all. She stood entirely motionless except for her right arm, swinging the sword tightly as she thrust it toward me over and over again.

On the defensive, my arms quickly tired. I was so busy blocking her blows that I had no chance of mounting an attack. Then it happened.

Pain ripped through my arm as I felt the warmth of my own crimson blood flowing in a torrent down my arm. My legs shook. I dropped my broad sword to the ground. It was like I was moving in slow motion as my head slowly turned to look at my left arm.

There was a gash so deep that I could see the bone peeking through. It was a wound so severe that it was a matter of seconds until I felt the lightheadedness that comes just before the world goes black.

As I slumped to the ground, my last thought was that I’d make a terrible warrior with only one arm.

33. Sword of the Order

When I woke I was in Madame Wong’s cottage, resting on the bed. My arm had been dressed in a white linen dressing, wound tightly. I saw no blood on the bandage so I decided to unwrap it even though I was scared of what I’d see.

I slowly unwrapped the cloth. As the linen slipped off my arm, I saw no blood, no puss, no oozing sore. There was only the faintest of scars where a two-inch gash had been.

“Miss Emily come, take tea and stew,” I heard Madame Wong croak.

I sat at her small table and drank the small cup of warm tea in one swallow then set to eating the bowl of stew like a starving person. She said not a word as she refilled my tea and scooped more stew into my bowl.

“Madame Wong, I don’t understand. How can I heal so quickly and completely here?”

“It is a world of no time and pure intention Miss Emily. We can have things exactly as we want them.”

“Then why did you bandage me?”

“Because your mind expects a bandage. You feel you must
do
something to heal rather than
think
something to heal. I gave you what you expected.”

I let her words sink in as I devoured the rest of my stew, bread and tea. Every time she gave me an ‘answer,’ more questions rose from it.

“Look, I see how that may work here, in a place of no time.”

“And a place of no place.”

“Yeah, whatever. But when I go back to my world – the world where I have to defeat Dughall – well it most certainly is a place and has time. So none of what I’m learning here will apply there, will it?”

“If it didn’t why would I teach it to you?”

“Well that’s what I’m saying! It’s like I’m wasting my time here.”

“No time so no waste. Besides, all I teach you works in your world.”

“So I can defy gravity and fly through the air and have whatever I want? I don’t believe that.”

“Then you’re not ready to return. Miss Emily, laws of universe same everywhere. Big or small. Here or there. No matter. Only thing that matters - your intention.”

“Then why can’t humans fly or just think of something they want and poof – it’s there?”

“First, because humans don’t believe they can do those things. Second, because your world is a place of time. Because of time, your creations do not happen instantly. And that causes you not to believe, bringing you back always to the first thing.”

“So when I go back there, I can do all the things you’re teaching me here if. . .”

“If you have belief and patience.”

I wasn’t there. I couldn’t believe I could sail through the air just by thinking it. I didn’t believe I could conjure up a chair or any other object just because I wanted it. I wasn’t sure that I would ever believe those things were possible in my world, even if I stayed with Madame Wong a thousand years.

“You not believe, you not ready to go. But you are ready to fight, no?”

I simply sighed and instantly we were back in Madame Wong’s training room.

“Madame Wong teach you about weapons now. You chose broadsword because it was shiny and pretty.”

“That’s not why!”

“Yes it is, and Miss Emily knows it. Not good reason. Warrior must play to her strength. Broadsword is weapon for a brute man, not a medium-sized girl.

“You need a weapon for finesse, cunning. Come,” she said as she walked to the rack of weapons. “Pick them up, swing them, listen to them. Choose the one that sings to you.”

Singing swords?
I glared at her hard but didn’t argue as I picked up swords and lances and daggers and other objects of aggression. Most of them were too heavy for me or felt awkward to hold. Toward the end of the line, I saw a sword with a wood handle and a thin blade, much like Madame Wong’s. The handle looked well worn, its wood polished to a sheen by the sweat of the hands that had held it before me. The blade was only about an inch wide and could be no more than an eighth of an inch thick. The handle was about a foot long, maybe eighteen inches and the blade about two feet. The blade was not corroded but not shiny either and covered in what looked like Celtic knots.

When I picked it up, I felt a tingly feeling run up my hand and into my arm. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end like it did when I entered the Sacred Grove. I swung it wide, and I swear I heard a single musical note hang in the air. The handle felt like it had always been in my hand. It felt effortless to swing it in a wide arc.

“That blade sing to you Miss Emily?”

“Yes,” I answered in a whispered voice. “Madame Wong, this sword. Who owned it?”

“That sword have no owner but was used by last High Priestess of the Order of Brighid.”

“Saorla.”

“Yes, and many priestesses before her. Like the torc on your arm, it was crafted by the Fair Sidhe for the Order of Brighid.”

I practiced swinging, thrusting and flying with the beautiful sword in my hand. It felt like an extension of my arm, like it was a part of me.

“Miss Emily ready for next combat lesson?”

“Yes,” I said as I continued to practice my moves.

“For a true warrior, life is sacred. A warrior with honor never kills unless she must. But when she must kill, a warrior is prepared to take the life of another – or to die – if honor requires it. Are you prepared to take the life of another? Could you kill Dughall if necessary?”

I hadn’t thought of that. Up to that point my mission had been a bit abstract.
Kill someone?
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

It’s not like I’m against a person killing another to save their own life or the life of someone they love, but I never thought I’d be the one doing the killing. Doubt crept through my blood like a cold, dark shadow.

“I don’t know Madame Wong. Honestly, I’m not sure I can kill someone – even someone as bad as Dughall.”

“Even if it were necessary to save the ones you love?”

A scream pierced the air, breaking the icy silence that defined the Netherworld. A high-pitched scream that was familiar but also seemed like it was from a long-forgotten dream.

Fanny.

34. The Three Little Ninjas

I ran from the training room and out into the mist and fog. Another scream and a shout.

“Help! Emily, we’re here!”

Jake. I ran toward the voices as fast as my legs would take me. Then it occurred to me to stop running and just think about being where they were.

Out of the mist and fog another building came into view. It was a small cottage, much like Madame Wong’s only slightly larger. I stormed through the door, the Sword of the Order still in my hand.

Inside it was dark like night, the only light coming from the grey haze of the Netherworld through the small window openings covered with carved wooden screens. In a corner of the large open room I had stepped into were Jake and Fanny, their hands bound behind them. They were lashed together with a thick rope, and their feet too were bound tightly.

“Emily, look out!” screamed Jake.

It was a good thing he warned me. I had been thrown off my guard, and I was not focused and aware like Madame Wong had taught me. With Jake’s warning I sprung to the air and did a back flip so that I could see my attacker.

Attackers! There were three small men, dressed in black from head to toe, all three brandishing large, curved broadswords like the ones Madame Wong had said were for brutes. The three little ninjas. They turned to face me as I gently landed on the wooden floor. I planted my feet, right foot in front, left behind. I held my sword horizontally in front of me, my left hand up and vertical in front of my face. Focus. Breathe.

They all lunged for me at once, charging like bulls, their swords swinging wildly as they screamed their warrior cries. I felt the blade coming before I could see or hear it, like the movement of the swinging disrupted the molecules in the air around me. I thought only of my blade connecting with theirs, and my arm swung powerfully in a large arc. There was the loud crash of steel as the Sword of the Order swung true and hit the first blade.