The Tragedy of Cordelia Martin, Part I

In the aftermath of slaughter, there was nothing left.

            Cordelia opened her eyes to white hot light, the sound of destruction a distant echo ringing in her ears. The blaring pain in her eyes faded into a dull thrum she could feel in her pulse. It wasn’t long at all before she realized something was wrong – something beyond the smell of smoldering ruin.

           

            Cordelia felt it, but could not see it when she raised her hand over her blind right eye – not an eye at all – but a large black pearl in its place. The distinct marks of scarring were an ugly braille beneath her fingertips, and slowly memory returned.

            It was cold. Wet. Beyond the sound of wind, and rain, there was nothing. Silence filled the place of the sounds in her village she took for granted. Sounds here she would never hear again. Cordelia shifted in her gi. It was heavy, heavier than most, and worse in the downpour. Her gi – a gift from her lover – now sleeveless, and in stringy tatters where sleeves once were. The black faded long ago, leaving a thick charcoal canvas of broken traditions.

Cordelia rose, the weathered tatami mats beneath her feet saturated, wafting the scent of rush grass, and rice straw into the storm winds. She furrowed her brow as phantom pains echoed in place of her eye.

She remembered now.

An expert cut scarred flesh and bone, leaving not only blindness, but absence. The pearl in its place, a gift – and a reminder – from her old master.

All at once, nothing - and everything.

Thunder rumbled distantly, echoing through black clouds. Steadily, the rain fell, and Cordelia was not alone.

A brief glint of silver song cut through the air, severing droplets of rain into fine bits of mist. The brief hiss of wounded air shattered with an immediate and violent ring of steel, on steel.

Had her draw been a moment longer, she would have joined the rest of the village into the void. Had her draw been a moment sooner, her attacker would have fallen dead, defeated.

Iado – the art of drawing – had never been her strength.

Her master was a sword-saint – a Kensei – of the modern age. Cordelia was not her master, nor anything like her master’s masters. In fact, as often her mentors chose to advance her, she chose to stay behind. Her classmates advanced around her, and her gi faded from its deep black to the now rough, raw charcoal gray. If she had anything, it was time. In the modern world, there was no room for Bushido.

While others practiced with boken, she practiced with staff.

It seemed the more practical tool at the time. She would not survive fencing this swordsman again. Cordelia held her master’s sword – a shirasaya – nervously, studying her foe.

In old Japan, tradition held that honorable duels fought on equal ground, in open space. There would only ever be one survivor, or none. This was not Japan. She was not Japanese, and this assassin, this enemy, did not strike honorably.

From shadows he came, and into shadows she would send him, were she lucky enough.

            He pressed forward.

Cordelia turned, spinning around the assassin with dancer's grace, but he was smoke and shadow before she could strike. Her master spoke once of the Oni - demons - who were deceptive and devious - whose drives and ambitions were beyond mortal understanding.

Cordelia did not believe in monsters, and demons.

She believed in oak, and steel. The weight of her Gi was real. The scent of the assassin's intent was real.

The cold in the rain was real.

Patience, peace, and balance.

These, the tenants of her masters, and the steps to understanding quickness over speed as the great fencer Musashi instructed so many centuries before.

Patience.

Cordelia knelt, sheathing her shirasaya. She into a kneeling seat – seiza – and closed her eyes. The pearl was heavy in her face. The sinister peace returned. She, alone and the burned village. The assassin came and left, unsuccessful in whatever the mission had been.

Patience. Peace. Balance.

Stifling a grimace, and burying the dark emotions begging her soul for release, she closed her eyes, and folded her hands in her lap; she bowed her head, and meditated on the memory of her masters who had fallen.

Cordelia was alone.