Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [85]
Evidently, Spirit had ticked off “Nordic folklore,” because that was what Ms. Lane-Rider began to lecture on.
“Death,” she said, when everyone had settled. “Death is omnipresent in Nordic lore. There is probably not a single culture that celebrates death or elevates it to such a level of importance as the Norse. Other cultures have the cult of heroic self-sacrifice to save others, to be sure, and the Japanese have, or had, the Kamikaze of sorts, but only the Norse placed so much emphasis on ‘dying well’ regardless of what was won or lost—”
Dylan raised his hand. She acknowledged him with a raised eyebrow.
“What about Klingons?” he asked, eliciting a laugh.
“Very good. Writers have to start with something, and it is quite clear that the Klingon attitude is Nordic, though their catchphrase of ‘It is a good day to die’ is Native American. Now, the question we must answer as magicians, is: ‘What does this mean to us, and how can we use it?’”
Spirit listened, and took copious notes, even though she didn’t agree morally with an awful lot of what Ms. Lane-Rider had to say. Or maybe more to the point, Ms. Lane-Rider lectured from a completely amoral point of view, and Spirit could not have been more opposed. She could tell that Muirin was just drinking all of this in, though, and that worried her. When the class was over, Ms. Lane-Rider even stopped by Muirin’s desk to talk to her about something, which worried Spirit even more. She couldn’t wait, though; her next class was that Systema thing, and she was pretty sure Anastus Ovcharenko was not going to cut anyone any slack.
He didn’t. And Systema proved to be a martial art, but it wasn’t like anything that had been taught at Oakhurst before this. As Mr. Ovcharenko explained it, it was all about controlling the joints of the opponent, since this was where you got the most gain for the least force. He talked for about ten minutes, then said abruptly: “Bah! Enough of talking. Now we spar.”
And instead of exercises or kata, that was exactly what they did. He broke them into teams of two—and he seemed to have a pretty good idea of who the bullies in the class were, because he paired them off against each other and the glint in his eye said that this wasn’t an accident. After he’d let the pairs match off against each other for a while, he stopped them, and demonstrated some moves, drilled them, then set them to sparring again. But he wasn’t looking for “the right counter.” In fact, when Dylan repeated the same strike three times, he interrupted, shouting “Nyet! Svinya! This is not tournament! Systema is to be flexible, reactive, and never, never to set up pattern! Now, again! This time being to think!”
Up close, he was a surprise. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty; very blond with brilliant blue eyes, almost too handsome to be real. But he had very cold eyes, and Spirit got the feeling that almost everything he did was a carefully calculated act—a Systema of behavior, designed to fool everyone around him until he decided to take out a weak spot.
* * *
All through dinner, all that Muirin could talk about was Madison Lane-Rider, and it was driving Spirit crazy. It was as if Muirin had discovered a long-lost older sister. Not that Spirit was jealous—but because her instincts were screaming at her not to trust the woman.
“Muirin,” she finally snapped, “you’re acting like you and this woman you didn’t even know existed two days ago are BFFs! I mean, we don’t know anything about these people, and she could be one of the Shadow Knights for all we know!”
Muirin looked offended. “I’m not stupid! All I’m trying to do is get information out of her! Can I help it if she’s the first person I’ve ever met here who knows the difference between Donatella Versace and her brother? It’s the first time in months that I’ve had an intelligent conversation that wasn’t about conspiracies, disappearances,