From: gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Jeremy Nelson)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [Zia],younger: Swallow into Leaping Tiger
Date: 22 Dec 1992 14:42:55 +0800
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: uniwa.uwa.edu.au


Zia thought something was wrong.  But she paid attention to her senseii
anyway, probably long habit.  She could feel something was subtly out of
place...

'See the rock pools?  See the flow of water, from place to place, all
the while taking the path of least resistance?  This, Woen, serves us as
a model for the flow of powers through the different planes and places.'

A wave came crashing in, and Zia briefly found herself distracted by the
rank smell of seaweed.  The little rock pools, freshly restocked,
dribbled liquid from pool, to pool, to pool, and back to the ocean.

'These are the strengths of the analogy: there are different paths from
pool to pool, of different volume.  What flows from pool to pool is
different, and it depends upon what was in each pool.  And in some
cases, the water does not always flow down...', he smiled slightly and
gestured to a little pool with several large cascades of weed draped
over the edge.  Even as Zia pulled her attention to the pool to see if
it really _was_ refilling due to the weed, another wave crashed in.

'These are the weakness of the analogy: the cosmos is of different
dimension, and obeys an exotic metric.  Waves do not restock the power
of worlds.'  He smiled gently again and dipped his fingers gently in
another pool and watched the tiny wash of ripples.

He was an elderly gentleman with long white hair and a long stringy grey
beard.  His balding pate was as wrinkled as his face.  Zia still
remembered the shock when she realized it was all a facade.

They had been in the capital, and while drinking in a sake house, a
belligerent young ronen, depressed, humiliated and unhappy had been
harrasing her.  Her master had calmly distracted him, provoked him into
a fight and then deftly dodged his every strike.  Eventually, frustrated
beyond all endurance he had charged and found himself upended in a horse
trough.

She swallowed nervously, remembering. (And wondered why her mouth was so
dry.)  To this day she wondered if her master had used magic.  His only
comment had been a significant look a vaguely disaproving sniff, and a
loud comment, 'No Balance.'  

Another wave crashed in and sent up a great sheet of spray, the very
edge of which drifted down onto them.  The fine mist of water peppered
her skin like dots of hot oil. 

'Consider what we can do to the pools.  We can overfill them, we can
underfill them, or we change the geometry of the pools.'

Woen pulled her thoughts back to the matter at hand and considred her
wandering thoughts.  She stood up gracefully, carefully picked her way
along the rocks until she found a place which felt... 'right', and
carefully pulled the shoes from her feet.

She stared for a moment at her feet, and was amazed at how small they
were.  Then she relaxed and began the exercises.

Her master was sat quietly where she left him.  The sea, momentarily
calm, hissed as a new wave formed.

`Consider what we can do to the pools.'  She formed an impression of the
pools behind closed eyes, as she performed 'Part of the Wild Horses
Mane', for the first time.

Everything stopped for a moment, and Zia caught her breath and realised
something was wrong.  Something was happening, and she was in no way
capable for doing anything about it. 

Woen waited for the image to form, felt a moment of startlement as she
slipped and she felt rock cut up the side of her foot to her ankle, and
her feet plunge in to the salt pool.  There was a thrill of fear as she
felt the salt invade the gaping cut.  Then she recovered and returned to
her contemplation, which still refused to form.

Her master had reclined on a narrow isthmus of rock, surrounded by
pools.  A crab scuttled out of one and stalked toward his sandles, claws
raised high in challenge.  A wave sluiced up to fill the pools.

Finally a clear picture of the pools formed.  But almost immediately she
slipped again falling to one knee and slicing a long gash along her left
leg, and a deep cut on her knee.  She quickly stood and began again from
'The White Crane Spreads its Wings'.  She swallowed an upsurge of fear.

Blood leaked from her legs and spreading clouds tinted some of the
smaller pools.  Her master lying, eyes closed, squeezed back a tremour,
and listened to the waves.  The crab, startled by the sudden movement,
reared back, waving his claws madly.

Zia shook with fear and realized the delusion she was caught up in was,
somewhere, happening for real.

Woen stumbled again during 'Hands Strum the Lute', fell outright during
'High Pat on Horse'.  No matter what she did she could 'High Pat on
Horse' defeated her, and inside of five minutes her cotton gown was
patterned in blood.

Her master quickly rose to his feet, gathered his sandles, and without a
look or a comment walked away from her, over the rocks and back towards
his home.

Woen stood fixed in terror, and Zia realized she had been rejected for
further training until she could return centered.  An exceptional wave crashed  in and flooded her ankles, catching the hem of her bloody dress and
dragging it toward the sea.

Woen/Zia screamed silently as her body was dumped in the snow of the low
city.  Still suffering from joystix withdrawl, comatose and totally
incapable of action, she quietly whispered for her long departed
master.
-- 
Jem.  Jeremy Nelson.  gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au       :\  =>  :) 
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn