13'Sao-La
He strolled, his swaggering shoulders and jaunty chin belying his confused gut and his neck ridged
with anger. The Voiceless-filled plaza hid him well. He would angle out of it in a few moments
and catch the first of many qi-che that would eventually take him back to the Ready Room. He alone
would complete the Kata-for-Delivery.
Yachuach! It stunned him. Anshin had trumped his carefully won score. He staggered, his feet
fumbling for the ground, his gaze blurring among the buildings. Anshin had robbed him of a sweet
victory by overwhelming his done and his expected. He regathered his feigned posture and strolled
on.
Somewhere ... else, 11'Gaur and 4'Banteng existed somewhere else. No longer ollomani, no longer in
the League. He couldn't grasp where they were now, just where they were not. The anshin had
killed them ... no, the anshin had taken them ... probably taken them ....
Those dreamsticks! The Governor had called them defensible, had prescribed a kata for defeating
them. But 11'Gaur had tried, had crashed, had fallen, had failed so quickly before the long,
invisible reach of the dreamstick. 13'Sao-La shook off the memory with a shudder.
The anshin were no mere Ruleskeepers, to recce for always, to confound when he could, to respect
when he couldn't, to obey at all times. The anshin were not even the keepers of Rules in a
different game, a game to be learned and conquered.
No, the anshin were ... Enemies. Not the supposed "Enemies" of his practice life — before the
Governor introduced their new mission and graduated them to lead the New Order — but real
Enemies. Deadly, clever, kill-or-be-killed Enemies.
Acid coursed through his veins and sinews, burning, anxious to challenge this Enemy, test him,
fight him, shock, control, and destroy him. But the Kata-for-Delivery called 13'Sao-La beyond this
immediate pleasure. It guided them to fulfill the New Order and the New Order demanded victory,
and victory demanded wisdom, and wisdom demanded knowledge, and knowledge demanded data.
When he had slipped away from the anshin, like a barracuda avoiding a shark. When he had sidled to
a barber kiosk and hid in plain sight while the anshin scythed the struggling occupants of the
amphora shop, laying them down with induced dream-rigor, halting the riot with indiscriminate, yet
gentle force. When he had exited the bazaar and sauntered toward this plaza, on his indirect way
back to his Rollkeeper. When he had obeyed the Kata-for-Delivery, 13'Sao-La vowed that he had
followed this path as a courier, a carrier of vital data, necessary to the success of the New
Order. So he vowed over and over, even unto the reduced number of ollomani in the Ready Room.
