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Pai Ch’ung-hsi was not interested in the lesson of attack. He reverted to the theory of winning by outlasting. “We can afford to lose four men if the Japanese lose one,” he said, adding that Chinese losses would be of “no significance”
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“The vendor looked at him through narrow eyes. “What is your name, what is your island, and what is your dance?”
The questions shocked him through to the core.
It took him a moment to pull up the traditional answers. “I am Cliopher Mdang of Tahivoa in Gorjo City. My island is Loaloa.” He paused a moment, before the desire for it to be true overcame the fear that he overreached himself in the claim. His third answer came, as a result, much more quietly. “My dance is Aōteketētana.”
“Where have you danced the fire?”
These were the questions out of the Lays of the Wide Seas. Cliopher had been expecting to haggle over price, not his identity. He took a breath. No one was listening to him but the vendor.
“I learned the steps on Loaloa from the direction of the tanà, my great-uncle Tovo. My feet bear the scars of my learning.”
He gestured down, though the old burns on the sides of his feet, where he had brushed up against the coals, were hidden by his Solaaran-style sandals.
“And I danced the fire across the Wide Seas when I sailed down the river of time in a ship of my own hands’ shaping.”
― The Hands of the Emperor
The questions shocked him through to the core.
It took him a moment to pull up the traditional answers. “I am Cliopher Mdang of Tahivoa in Gorjo City. My island is Loaloa.” He paused a moment, before the desire for it to be true overcame the fear that he overreached himself in the claim. His third answer came, as a result, much more quietly. “My dance is Aōteketētana.”
“Where have you danced the fire?”
These were the questions out of the Lays of the Wide Seas. Cliopher had been expecting to haggle over price, not his identity. He took a breath. No one was listening to him but the vendor.
“I learned the steps on Loaloa from the direction of the tanà, my great-uncle Tovo. My feet bear the scars of my learning.”
He gestured down, though the old burns on the sides of his feet, where he had brushed up against the coals, were hidden by his Solaaran-style sandals.
“And I danced the fire across the Wide Seas when I sailed down the river of time in a ship of my own hands’ shaping.”
― The Hands of the Emperor
“The efelauni said—oh, it was all out of the Lays, Buru Tovo. He said, ‘Your hands know what your eyes are seeing.’ And Cliopher said, ‘You know how it is, I was taught by my great-uncle.’” Something like that … his words are not so clear in my mind.” “I understand,” he said again. No, they wouldn’t be. Not if this was what he suspected it was. Oh, what a thing to imagine, if it was what he suspected it was! “He asked, the efelauni asked Cliopher the questions out of the Lays: ‘What is your name? Your island? Your dances?’ And Cliopher looked like—he looked as if he had stepped out of one of the Lays himself. He lifted his chin and he said, ‘I am Cliopher Mdang of Tahivoa. My island is Loaloa. My dances are Aōteketētana.’” Aōteketētana. Not Aōtetana. Not simply the fire dances, but the Fire Dance. Aya opened her eyes to smile at him. Her eyes were shining with tears. “I always wanted someone to ask me that,” she whispered.”
― Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander
― Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander
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