LEVITICUS

Rules, regulations, laws, orders, statutes, canons, decrees, fiats, commands! Paine's mind chattered with the noise of the thoughts pouring inside. She had managed to pursue her life largely unhampered by the demands of conventional requirements and to discover that the man she had thought most to be above the petty demands of such things was a willing slave to a set of codified edicts had chilled her to her core.

The days continued their regular path during the testing in the desert. As her job gradually became routine, Paine found her mind wandering more and more to what she was learning about Nooj. She had thought she knew him well and had become at ease with him before they left Mushroom Rock Road. Now new and disturbing facets of his character were being revealed. Maybe it was because he was engaged in formal battles now but the tenets of the Warriors' Code kept shaping his behaviour in ways which dismayed her. She had been a fighter all her adult life and had never heard of some of the rules he cited. She wondered if they were written down in a formal document or if they were merely ideas he had formulated for his own guidance, to justify his own actions. It would be like him to put together a code of draconian regulations all for himself alone. He seemed to take a perverse pleasure in torturing himself as if fate had not done a thorough enough job.

The incident with the grendel (or nashorn or whatever it had been) seemed to have receded into the past; it was not mentioned between them. When she thought back to what he had said after the event it still rankled just a bit. That tendency to proclaim rules which must be obeyed without question did not sit well with her.

To her own personal horror she found she was watching her step around him, fearful lest she break one or more of those sacrosanct and occult laws. This was not the way she chose to think of herself but she was resolved to treat him as carefully as she could during this time of great stress. However if she was to avoid offending him, she should at least know what he considered incorrect behaviour . So, one day when the men were out exploring the terrain, she sat down and wrote out the rules she was clear about.

Honour above all

Do not interfere in another Warrior's decisions

Never discuss one Warrior with another save during formal hearings

Do not boast

Lead without revealing personal fears and doubts

Always place your followers above yourself

Do not hesitate to act

Do not complain

With a slow and hesitant stylus, she wrote down one more.

Do not think too much lest that hinder decision making and action.

He probably would not have put it that way but let it stand for the moment. It seemed to accurately reflect the way he went about his business when making choices these days. Nine rules to be obeyed without question or hesitation.

And these were only the ones relating to being a Warrior. There were certainly others governing every aspect of his life and actions. For instance, there must be one dictating just how his mane of hair was arranged and how his clothing was to be worn. She was sure there were reams of others she had not uncovered but to her analytic mind, there were certain contradictions among even these she was aware of. Nooj did not seem to notice but followed the interpretation which caused him the most inconvenience. She sighed. He was a puzzle. He spoke little of his own past, although he was always asking her about her own and seemed genuinely interested to hear the answers. She had the feeling that in learning what he considered important and in observing how he chose amongst the various meanings of his rules, she was getting a picture of what his youth must have been like. She thought it must have been terribly constrained to make him hold so fast to this code of student restrictions in his maturity. She wondered if they were the only guides he had ever found for himself, if no person close to him had ever told him how to live. Trying to follow the convolutions of his reasoning and its causes was making her as confused as a lab rat in a maze.

Apart from that, Paine believed that working in partnership with Nooj in the desert, she had been integrated into his thinking and had become important in his life. That was enough for the time being.

The little group, so disparate from the very beginning was starting to coalesce. Each was finding his own place in the hierarchy of the four. Baralai was the spiritual source and moral voice. He also had demonstrated a gift for finding useful herbs and compounding medicines. Gippal could sniff out water and was the desert-habituated guide. Nooj was ... well, Nooj, the natural leader. And she? She kept the peace and was the glue which held them together in spite of their differences. They would survive the tests, of that she was becoming certain. But what would happen to them once the testing was over?

"Nooj, do you ever think about what's coming after we get back to Headquarters? After we pass this test?" She leaned against his good shoulder as they sat on the far side of the nightly campfire.

"If we pass the tests, we'll be full members of the Crimson Squad and be assigned to lead Crusader units." He did not sound very interested and spoke in a monotone.

"I wish we could stay together, us four."

"That's not what we're being trained for. You knew that when you signed on." The subject was closed and she accepted the rebuff. It had become harder to hold long conversations as the days progressed. Talking was difficult with a dry mouth and conversing made the membranes even more parched.

All the theoretical musing about what truly motivated Nooj fell away from the front of her attention as the desert trials became more punishing. It is difficult to entertain philosophical thought when one is perishing of thirst and broiling under the sun. And yet, Paine in a delirium of heat and exhaustion wondered if there were any circumstances under which Nooj would abandon his self-imposed discipline and permit himself to be entirely human. Was there any way he could discard his rigid exoskeleton of laws and yield to natural needs? Watching him, tight-lipped , limping forward on his sand befouled leg, she guessed not.

In the final testing, it was the lawless Gippal who saved them. His ability to sense water kept them going with the discovery of warm brackish seepage points and, finally, with the greatest find of all- a cool cave housing a spring of fresh water.

As was inevitable in hindsight, they had to contend with another crew for possession of this treasure. The fight and its aftermath led to the loss of a pair of lives, something the straggling and decimated field of candidates could ill afford. It all seemed phantasmagoric even at the time.

After the battle for control of the cave, Nooj proved the value of clearly understood unchanging standards. He permitted all those who were present to enter, drink until they were satisfied and fill their canteens with the sweet restorative water. When that was done, he declared the refuge the exclusive domain of his unit and met with no objections.

"How did you know we wouldn't have to fight them all again to keep possession of this place?" Paine asked when they were washed and tiredly huddled under their spread out sleeping bags.

"They learned they could trust me to be fair so there was no need to waste energy or risk death fighting for what they were freely given. Isn't that obvious?"

"Not to me, it wasn't. Besides wasn't most of it due to the fact they knew you and your reputation from the past?"

"Think about it. Where did my reputation come from?" He answered his own question. "If I had not acted with honour in all my dealings during all my career, there would be no reason to trust my word and actions now."
He ran a hand down the curve of her hip. "Now you should begin to see the worth of living by a code. It saves a lot of effort in the long run and lets everybody know what to expect."

Later, when they had time to rest and reflect, she told Gippal and Baralai what Nooj had said.

"Is he right? It seemed to work in this case."

Gippal rolled his eye. "It may work but it's not my style. I've fought for everything I've ever got and this seems sorta ... sissy."

Baralai hid a snicker in his cupped hands. "Better not let Nooj hear you say that. I think he was brilliant. No sense all us candidates fighting amongst ourselves when the real enemy is ..." He firmly clapped his hands over his mouth and arched his brows.

"Those who are not to be named?" Paine teased.

"The ones with even fewer standards than me," Gippal confirmed. "The really lawless ones."

Thursday, January 17, 2008

1