Bound
by Tom Dillon
A Broken Shores Story
Copyright 2012 Tom Dillon
“What matters is not that you boarded the ship, but whether the ship reached its destination due to or in spite of your actions.” -Ansauan Proverb
Kinav island
59th day of Skohi, 471 AC
“Are you excited?” Kai’s father asked as they worked their way down the steep stairs towards their seats near the arena’s edge.
“It should be a good fight,” Kai said.
“Not about that, I meant about the ceremony tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Kai said. He wasn’t sure what his father wanted him to say. It was the last night that he would spend as part of his family’s household, and for the next ten years he would be a part of the Vaarplikt. He did not know what he would be doing, or even which of the five sub-islands he would be on. The truth was that he was excited, but he didn’t want to hurt his father by telling him how eager he was to be out on his own.
His father picked up on his hesitance. “I know, it’s a strange thing. Just remember, your mother and I, we will always be here for you. The important thing is to keep your eyes open and your feet on the ground, and you’ll do fine.”
There it was, his father’s catch phrase. When he was young, Kai hadn’t really noticed or questioned it, but one day his best friend, Rafi, had asked him if he agreed that people who didn’t do well in life had just not been attentive enough or had simply been unwilling to take the opportunities that had been presented to them. Kai had never been able to come up with a good answer. The uncertainty had eaten at his perception of his father, the great businessman and pillar of his family, and now Kai simply felt adrift.
“I’m sure I will,” Kai said.
“Who did you bet on?” his father asked, referring to the tradition of placing a bet on the last night before the Binding Ceremony, a symbolic last act of frivolity before the responsibilities of adulthood.
“Angeli,” Kai said, knowing that it was the same bet that his father had made, although of a smaller magnitude. He would have been a fool to not do the same, when his father favored someone, they tended to win. The bet had been the inciting incident between him and Rafi, who had bet on the challenger. She had asked if he planned on following his father’s lead for his entire life, if he believed that other cornerstone of his father’s worldview, about the world being divided between cheaters and losers. Kai didn’t have an answer to that question either.
“Good,” his father said.
He was spared more awkward conversation as the judge entered the ring and the buzzing of the crowd went silent. The judge walked its perimiter, inspecting the Seals that would hold the shield once the bout started, walking to the center and nodding towards the fighters’ entrances when he was satisfied. Kai felt a surge of disappointment as the two men entered the arena. Angeli looked like a prince standing beside a fisherman, wearing a green and white silk robe in contrast to the other man’s simple sarong and shirt of rough cream-colored fabric. The disparity in clothing only served to emphasize the fact that Angeli stood head and shoulders above his opponent, Vandon.
As the combatants turned to look at the crowd, Kai got a better look at their Seals. Each of them had three Seals, one to allow them to draw power from the Battery, one to tax them by drawing energy from them into the Battery, and one to allow them to channel Ve in different ways. Angeli’s skill Seal was full, representing his mastery of various arts. Vandon’s, in contrast, was mostly empty. Kai looked down at his own arms, where frames for the three Seals had been tattooed a year ago but would remain empty until the following morning, when he would go through the Binding ceremony and as an adult be forever linked to the Island.
It looked like it was going to be a short fight, and Kai had been hoping that his hero would face a serious challenge. His father, on the other hand, was excited at the prospect of an easy victory for Angeli.
The shield at the border of the ring snapped into place, like a soap bubble popping in reverse. It quickly faded, though, and after a moment it was as if it had never been there at all. Angeli immediately brought his hands together, and his brow furrowed with concentration as he readied his first blast. Vandon started to move sideways to the left, and though his body looked totally relaxed, Kai was close enough to see the intensity in his face as he stared unblinkingly at his opponent.
The quiet in the ring didn’t last long. After his opponent had only taken a few steps, Angeli turned to face him and outstretched both of his hands, the insides of his wrists almost touching and his fingers curved forward as though he were holding a bowl. A ball of energy appeared in the space between his fingers and grew until it was the size of two fists. As it grew in size, it also grew in intensity, and it became difficult to look at. Then it shot forward, directly at Vandon. Kai had seen it before, one of Angeli’s signature moves, using a powerful blast to force his opponent to put up a shield at cost of both energy and initiative. The ball was moving incredibly fast, and Kai knew from experience to look towards its target rather than try to follow its path. When he looked, though, Vandon wasn’t forming a shield, but standing with his arms loose at his side. Impossibly fast, he jumped to the side, and the ball of energy hit the arena’s shield, which turned opaque, like the surface of a reflecting pool that had been violently disturbed.
“No one’s that fast,” Kai’s father said, and Kai silently agreed.
The shield cleared just fast enough for them to be able to see a second bolt headed at Vandon, this one not traveling nearly as fast. By this time, Vandon was well out towards the center of the ring, perhaps fifteen paces from Angeli, and he dodged the ball easily, only to have it curve back towards him. This time he let it almost reach him before darting to the side. The ball curved again, but not in time to prevent it from splashing harmlessly against the shield.
By then, Vandon was sprinting towards Angeli, small jets of sand shooting up from his sandals as he ran. He wasn’t moving as fast as he had when he dodged the first shot, but he was still moving faster than Kai had ever thought possible. For a moment, it looked as though the match was going to end, as though Vandon was going to just run up to Angeli and beat him senseless. And then Angeli fired a series of pearl sized blasts into the sand between him and Vandon. Fast as he was, Vandon was simply unable to stop before hitting the wall of sand that was blocking his path, and as Kai sat watching Angeli begin to form yet another bolt, he felt himself grinning along with the rest of the audience, this was Angeli’s home after all.
There was nowhere for Vandon to go, and the bolt hit him square in the chest, reversing his momentum so that he was flying backwards. Before he had even hit the ground, Angeli had started to turn, hands up in a pose that was usually reserved for statues of the victorious, and the crowd was on their feet with him. The roar was deafening, and Angeli didn’t notice when Vandon got to his knees and then his feet. There was a hole in his white shirt, black and smoking at the edges, but underneath, there was only raw skin that was wholly healed by the time he had dusted himself off. The entire crowd let out a gasp. The shield prevented the fighters from accessing any external source of Ve, any energy they drew, they had to draw from themselves. To draw enough energy frome oneself to heal a wound like that was unheard of.
By then, Angeli had noticed that his opponent was not yet beaten, but it was too late. By the time he had turned around and dropped his hands, Vandon was on him. It only took one blow, a palm to the bottom of the ribs, and Angeli was down, like a fish that didn’t know what to do with the air. As Vandon walked up to his fallen opponent, Kai felt himself willing Angeli to get up, to fire off one last bolt, anything. Nothing happened, though, Angeli just lay there as Vandon walked up and placed a sandaled foot on his neck. Angeli went
limp and Vandon took a step back, reaching down to offer a hand to his opponent.
Kai’l attention was drawn back from the arena as his father slammed his fist into his leg. Like Kai, he had bet on Angeli, but he had bet much more.