The Test of the Blade

Ke'n'to was Senzi's Reward to heroes (1), said the proven takers of blood.(2) Ke'n'to's was the will and teaching behind the blades of many rrakkma bands, and many (3) were the illithid skulls for whose liberation Ke'n'to shared credit. To be trained with Ke'n'to was to share great honor, everyone knew.The student shared this knowledge. She was young, only just ready to enter the circle (4) of the knowledge of steel, but she showed great promise, and Ke'n'to was currently unoccupied.(5)The student had lost her unblooded name prematurely, but did not yet know the name that victory would reveal. Bereft, she entered the circle, her name as unshaped chaos. She sat there, aware of all angles, ready to move when the situation merited it.When the sensei stepped into the circle, the student felt his will deftly snatch control from the many wills of the city at large. He who knew the circle better than anyone could shape it whenever he desired. At this time, it remained flat and perfectly smooth, yet impossible to slip on."The proven ones tell me you have fought an illithid," said Ke'n'to, his voice shaping ripples in the air.The student said nothing. Ke'n'to's words were not a request for confirmation. "They tell me that you slipped into the plane that knew Zerthimon's birth and found an illithid city, and there your mind taught one to know pain before you fled its retribution." Again, the student had no response. Although the wounded mind flayer had gone on to make trouble for the People, she didn't fear punishment: although, as Zerthimon learned in the Battle of Two as One, sharing glory does not diminish it, neither does seeking it on one's own require permission. Still, victory is better than defeat, so the student was sent to learn more before engaging the illithid again.Ke'n'to drew his sword. It was made of steel forged from ore imported from the Outlands. Some preferred to use only weapons of pure will, but Ke'n'to knew his blade as well as he knew his own mind. With a sudden downward swing, the weapon sought to divide the unity of the student's skull. Feebly, she tried to shield herself with one arm.The sword stopped a hair's breadth from its target. Ke'n'to inhaled, shaping the air in his lungs to fortify his will. "Why do you seek to stop steel with flesh?" he asked the student."Sensei," she said, "I do not know.""Then know this," said Ke'n'to. "You could not defeat the illithids because you did not know weapons. Because you do not know weapons, neither can you stop my blade. When you could not stop the illithid's counter, what did you do?""I fled," said the student. "I slipped back home.""Then why, when you could not stop my sword blade, did you not attempt to flee it?""It was too swift." As true githzerai will, she put it as simply and bluntly as possible. "Too swift to escape completely, perhaps, but you could have moved your head, perhaps sacrificing an arm to save it as Ta'lon sacrificed his love-partner to save his sword-sister before the Battle of False Husks."The student lowered her eyes, her narrowed vision limiting her knowledge of the sensei as a gesture of respect."Go now," said Ke'n'to. "I will not teach you at this time. Perhaps you will learn from someone else, or perhaps you will enter a different kind of circle entirely. Perhaps you will learn nothing. I do not know."The student began viciously banging her arm against the surface of the floor, as if to demonstrate her newfound willingness to give it up. Ke'n'to watched in amusement."Very well," he said. "As Ben'netirr discovered when she broke the Treaty of the Hand-Shaped City, words exist to be reshaped by the will. Sit back down in the circle, and your training will begin."Notes:1, "Senzi's Reward" means teacher in the githzerai language of metaphors. For the rest of this story, the phrase is translated as "sensei" for simplicity.2. There may be a special term for illithid blood, or the githzerai may not recognize any other form of blood as being significant enough to name. Everything that prevents further battle is merely a failure of will. Githzerai kill githyanki, but they don't hunt them.3. It's possible that illithid skulls are the only thing githzerai bother to count. Successful hunts might be the basis for their perception of time.4. Circles are important to githzerai. The bubble of solid form created by an anarch shaper is spherical, but it is defined by the circle of ground on which the shaper stands. It is for this reason that githzerai architecture is circular in form, and, because shaping comes from knowing, githzerai literature is circular as well. Commonly, the anarchs will stand in a small circle near the bottom of their bubbles in order to leave the largest possible area of open, unobscured air through which to look for intruders.5. Githzerai rarely make plans ahead of time. In everchanging Limbo, they react according to the conditions of the moment. A githzerai wouldn't use the word "free" to describe lack of occupation, because freedom requires constant vigilance. To have nothing to do is to risk being enslaved by stillness, which was the error of Got'ram, who thought he could profit from unnecessary rest.