Life as a New Hire Ch. 45

[THE FIRST ISHARA OPEN HOUSE CHALLENGE]

If there was ever any doubt, I destroyed those twelve hopeful bodyguards on the mats. They possessed neither the skill nor the savagery necessary in a warrior culture. We Amazons didn't recoil from pain. Our sisters' lives were on the line. That was why you practiced no-holds-barred fighting with, or without, weapons.

"We can learn," the lead Finn protested. The rest were getting over the physical and spiritual pain of being so easily beaten.

"My normal bodyguards go through three years of intense 24/7 training. Being a member of that elite body means you train in all forms of weapons as well as hand-to-hand combat techniques."

"Once you've mastered the core physical and skill baseline requirements -- and this core training never stops, no point is considered 'good enough' -- you begin learning at least two specialties. Those are disciplines such as close-protection, sniping, small unit tactics, infiltration, battlefield medicine, electronics, computing, communication systems, linguistics and 'training' expertise."

"In my current team -- the ones who fought at my side in Hungry and Romania -- all have three specialties. Discounting their regimen since the age of five, each had been on the job in a professional capacity at least six years. The leader had eleven years in."

"Finally, when you are at that level of excellence, you need a specific mindset. What you need to do is think why you shouldn't kill someone, not if you should. If there is any doubt, you strike. If you hesitate, someone close to you might be killed -- not just me."

"Look around you. If you aren't ready to kill for any of your companions, you will never cut it. Now, I'm going to have you shown out. I will have taxis take you back to your hotel. Think about it. Seriously, think about dedicating yourself to more than some stranger you've met on the internet."

"You will be dedicating yourself to the other elven women in your group -- to the death. That is the level of spiritual dedication it takes to be at my side. Go -- take a rest -- talk it over -- search your souls. Call me if any of you want to continue and we can have lunch Sunday and make plans. Questions?"

"Do the other women around you do this -- make those choices?" one of the Turkish women frowned while nursing a bruised jaw.

"No. They have it worse. They have thrown their old lives away, never to return. Each and every one has either murdered a human being, or attempted to, before they are even considered for the task."

"Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't be having his conversation. You would never be given the chance. You are woefully unqualified in every way except spirit. Your willingness to cross the Atlantic to make your offers resonates with me, so I am both warning you this is horrible, horrible path you are taking and I am explaining precisely how slender any of your chances are of accomplishing your goals."

"I ... I don't know," whispered one of the Hungarian lasses.

"At the Seven Skulls, I led three such women into combat (Rachel, Charlotte and Saku) against a group of warriors who were fighting free of 500 elite Romanian Mountain Troops. Of the Romanians, nearly 200 were either dead, or wounded. The FBI Special Agent we took with us was badly wounded.

"One of the three was killed -- a head shot -- and the remainder left her body where she had fallen because the enemy were still out there and they had to protect me. The world will not bend to your sensitivities. Life around me is exceedingly dangerous and unforgiving," I finished.

No immediate consensus united them. Fear and disbelief were the major vibes I was picking up. None of them were angry, insulted, or overly terrified.

"Time for you to go," Buffy concluded our meeting. "Tigger Maeve and Dora Farānak, would you please see Cáel's guests to the lobby." A new pleasure of Buffy's was using the House names of the Full-bloods she interacted with.

{I have taken a few mystic liberties:

Maeve was a Celtic War Goddess ~ the Enslaver of Men.

Farānak was a Scythian Goddess also known as the Lynx Goddess and the Silent Huntress.

As for the other new hires:

Daphne was, as explained earlier, of House Cotyttia (Thracian Goddess of Sex, War and Slaughter)

Fabiola was of House Minerva (Roman Goddess of War & Strategy)

Violet Maza was in House Oshun, the Yoruba Goddess of Love, Sexuality, Beauty and Diplomacy; Lady of the Orisha ~ life spirits.

Paula Wadena was of House Cybele (Phrygian Earth Mother -- Guardian of the Lion Throne)}

They were dismissed and smart enough to know that was the best possible answer to their current predicament -- learning your romantic adventure was actually a gory supernatural battle for survival. A growing number of Isharans had been gathering while I dealt with the wannabes. A few were amused, perhaps even understanding, of my actions.

Soon enough, using her position as Record Keeper of House Ishara, Helena cajoled the other Amazons into giving us peace and quiet. Not all left. Watching a jury-rigged House Ishara work through its business in a semi-public setting was an event both unlooked for and possibly enlightening.

For this gathering, we had 122 of the 159 members. The missing members were not close enough, or were providing a critical function that wouldn't allow them to be in New York on this night.

"Sisters, a moment of personal prayer for each of us to seek guidance from our Ancestors as we seek to continue their legacy," I intoned softly, calling the meeting to order.

I had barely opened my eyes, failing to get any inspiration from Yakko, when the struggle began.

"Why are we including them in a House Ishara meeting?" Madori pointed out the three 'new hires' who were sticking around.

"Memasant (Amazon for to speak true)," I answered her. Since Daphne, Paula and Violet had clearly been sitting among us before the meeting began ... I gave Buffy a disappointing frown. "Ishara respects these three for teaching the rest of you the Amazon language so that we can teach it to others, thus all of you becoming able to engage all our sisters in our native tongue."

"I doubt any other House would extend this honor to others. Thankfully, we are not like any other House. We know better. We have all been outsiders. We aren't a 'normal' House and I am working toward us never being one. We have to be kind and just when necessary, and forgive when it is what the Host needs."

"We will do this because we Isharans alone will decide on the prestige of our sisters. If the other Houses make an issue of it ... who cares? None of them have made the sacrifices necessary to be Isharans. I know that you have not all gathered here tonight to hear me pontificate. Who wants to be first?"

"Will you accept a challenge?" Madori stood up. We had spread out in a ring, two Amazons deep, along the edges of the mats. I had never sat down.

"Put forth your complaint," I responded.

"You emphasize duties other than that of a House Head. You don't take the time to show up at initiation ceremonies. In essence, you ignore your sisters to advance your own prestige."

"Yes, I am not showing up at the initiation ceremonies."

"Yes, I prioritize other activities over running the day-to-day operations of our House."

"Yes, you are utterly ignoring the two Amazons sitting at either side of me. I chose Buffy Ishara and Helena Ishara to lead this House because I knew I would have others issues coming up in my life concerning the Host."

"Buffy, are you challenging me?"

"No, Wakko Ishara," she responded angrily. She wasn't angry with me. She had chosen the majority of the assembly and they were turning on me, thus her.

"Helena, are you challenging me?"

"No Wakko Ishara. I am intimately familiar with your work and the dangers you constantly confront for the greater Host," she answered in an equally hostile tone.

"Now that the issue of relevance has been dealt with, I will accept any challenge from any of you selfish, bigoted, power-hungry cunts who wish to put your own self-interest above that of our House. By all means, stumble over one another for the top spot," I mocked them. I'd played nice. No more.

It was telling that my classification of any challenger was completely ignored. Madori and five supporters stood. In theory, challenges were the rare 1-on-1 Amazon experience. Another Amazon, Arianne, stood with another supporter.

"Cool beans," I nodded.

I backed up, stepped off the mats and picked up the four axes I had pre-prepared. Back on the mat I went past my handful of supporters, brandished two weapons and advanced a quarter way onto the sparring area. The mass of my opponents muttered in confusion and resentment.

"Ishara, we have not trained in archaic weapons. Most of our facilities never had then," Madori protested.

"Amazons don't play fair," I glared. Several migrated to the walls to pick out whatever looked the least daunting. Buffy, Helena, Marsha, Daphne Cotyttia, Violet Oshun and Paula Cybele did likewise.

"Is this how you want to answer a challenge for leadership?" Madori glowered. "Cheating -- utilizing a clear advantage in a farce of equality and justice?"

"No. Please step back and call every member of JIKIT," my eyes narrowed. "How about this -- call the Amazon's contact with the Earth & Sky? Can't do that either? How about convince the 9 Clans to help us pursue a House obligation?"

"You duties as Chief Diplomat are not that of Isharan House Head and actually make you less of a House Head," she countered. She had chosen a short spear, using it two-handed. And that made Katrina what precisely?

"I should fucking kill you," Buffy snarled.

"Madori Ishara, Dot-Ishara is not the Goddess of Scrabble. She is not the Goddess of ...," and Madori tried to catch me flat-footed with a spear-thrust. I was appalled at how easy I dealt with her. My right axe diverted her spear enough so when I twisted my stance, she missed. I placed the head of my left axe on her shoulder, blade against her throat.

"Madori, you lose. Sit back down and contemplate that you were beaten by a 22 year old man," I seethed. There was no 'you didn't give me a chance' bullshit. She had struggled for advancement in the Amazon way. Such people weren't crybabies. "Next."

Arianne approached me with a shield and short sword. My read on the situation was she was going to use acrobatics to compensate for my superior reach. I readied myself.

"I don't suppose you would accept a suggestion we fight unarmed?" she put out there. I took two steps toward her then dropped my axes.

"I trust you," I looked down at her. I could see the 'oh, fuck me' written all over her face. The unfairness had been tossed in her lap. She put the point of her leaf-shaped blade under the left side of my ribcage, close to my kidney.

"Yield."

"Never."

"Yield, or I will kill you."

I took a quarter-inch penetration when I clamped down on her right wrist and slammed my elbow into her face. A quick exchange of footwork ended up with both of us on the mat, Arianne on her back, sword pinned to the mat and her shield trapped between us. Head-butt followed head-butt until she was unresponsive.

I stood up, blood oozing down my side.

"Water!" I barked. A bottled water was rolled my way. Three more Amazons were sizing me up. This challenge phase was far from over. I splashed water down on Arianne's face until she sputtered into wakefulness.

"Pathetic," I sneered at her. "This House is worth any and all of our lives. If you were the best candidate to lead this house and I refused to yield, then why did you spare me? Not only could you not kill me when you clearly could, you failed to do so even when it became an unequal contest of arms."

Arianne was shamed and furious. I was treating her like a presumptuous, outsider woman.

"I'm feeling particularly generous in victory, Arianne -- don't you dare stand up," I growled when she tried. "I will not kill you for your disrespect. I will not exile you from our House because doing so would show both of us failing to grasp one of the key principles of our People -- learn. Learn and keep learning. A loss is nothing more than a temporary setback. Learn, don't repeat the same mistake twice and never stop striving for success until you take yourself to the cliffs."

One of the two newest challengers was prepping her rush. I drew my other two axes.

"Wait your turn," I pointed an axe her way. "The rest of you -- you planned this meeting so you could overcome your disgust and condemnation over having a male be in charge of House Ishara. Don't bother lying to me, or each other."

"Your crappy performance is utterly irrelevant?" the challenger showered me with hate. As I have previously noted, telling a woman that she is clearly delusional by pointing out her delusions is rarely accepted in a positive manner.

"Have it your way. The sheer stupidity of your actions speaks for itself."

She moved forward. Much like Arianne, her tactic was to close in enough to turn this into an unarmed martial contest. I didn't know her name, yet could tell she hadn't joined House Ishara via her spectacular battlefield performance. She was undoubtedly bright, diligent and absolutely top notch at whatever post Havenstone had placed her in. Lecture time.

"Here begins the lesson," I danced away from her initial rush. "If you believe that I am nothing more than a prophetic hiccup in Amazon mysticism and not the true heir of Yakko Ishara, please raise your hand" I said to the room at large. Few did.

"Liars," I mocked them. I batted a few more of her attacks aside.

"Having refused to accept the window-dressing of my heritage, you have decided I am nothing more than a fortuitous aberration you are using for your own personal advantage. That is the only logical assertion that takes into account all the events of tonight," I kept lecturing them. "And you couldn't be more wrong."

"Stand still, damn you," my latest opponent hissed. I slipped right when I should have twisted left. I dropped the back of my axe-head on the top of her skull, dropping her like a puppet with its strings cut. The next one hopped up. Buffy's animalistic rumblings of pure rage were clearly audible. This one was going with the long spear and it looked like she had some talent. She was no Elsa and for this, she needed to be.

"Put your spear down and accept my judgement," I made eye contact with the newcomer.

"Why?'

"I'm not going to tell you. Go with your gut," I advised. I could see her weigh her options. She surprised me by placing her spear down and retreating from the mat.

"Why did you do that?" the woman next to her snapped quietly.

"I don't know," the latest challenger furrowed her brow.

"You did it because we have all been here before," I filled in the answer. "You were never Runners. Had you been alien to the Amazons, you would have faced the same fate as Alicia at my Father's gravesite."

"She was rejected by Ishara, not me. Ask any of the other twenty-one who were present. I burned my damn finger trying to get Ishara to take her in. It didn't happen. I've been thinking about that for the past few months. I think I now know why it happened." Miraculously, I had their attention.

"You never joined House Ishara," I scanned the whole assembly. "House Ishara found you. Generations ago you should have joined House Ishara except the gates had been closed. Your ancestors couldn't reach out to you because their mortal kin had perished without heirs. For fifteen hundred years, Isharans have been born, lived and passed on because no one was around to open your eyes to your place in the world."

"I am absolutely positive every one of you has fought, struggled and bled to be in this room, listening to my diatribe. So did Alicia. For those who know her, do you think she was lesser than you by any metric?" I let that sink in. Those who knew Alicia were mulling my words over. Those who didn't were studying the ones who did.

"Please examine your hearts and give me a reason why she and hundreds of equally qualified Runners are not here, and you are? Have you won a game of Texas hold 'em? The Pick-5? Do you think your other sisters drew your name out of hat, threw darts at a dart board, or did a random inner-house personnel search?"

"I'm waiting for someone to tell me I'm a nut, insane, or just plain wrong."

Nothing.

"You are here because you were born Isharans, grew up under Dot-Ishara's cruel tutelage and fortuitously lived in a time when the doors to our Ancestors were finally reopened."

"Former Runners? There -- is -- no -- such -- thing! You have always been Isharans. And only now is the rest of creation becoming aware of it," I stated in a clear, decisive voice. Kimberly insisted I take that course in Public Speaking so I could recite the words of long-dead kings in an authoritative voice. It was paying an unpredicted dividend now.

Except for the 3 non-Isharans, everyone in this room grew up in a scientific, predictable world. If any of them participated in a religion, they didn't expect any reaction to their worship. Faith was a word to whitewash the unknown. Havenstone had made no effort to dispel that way of thinking.

Yes, they knew they were living on the periphery of a 3,000 year old feud against male-kind. When given the decision to either believe 1.) there were thousands and thousands of ancestors and fifty-plus goddesses watching over them, or 2.) they belonged to a cult with a seriously weird backstory, they chose the 'reasonable' explanation.

It wasn't like the membership in that worship system were reaching out to embrace new members. The faith the full-Blooded Amazons had was part of their mistress's uniqueness they shared with one another while excluding their new 'sisters'. Such an infinitesimal number of Runners had been embraced by the faith ... so what else were they supposed to believe in?

Only now, they were being asked to embrace without question what all Full-Blooded took for granted. Mysticism was integral to Amazon life. They KNEW their Ancestors were watching over them. They KNEW their Matron Goddesses prepared an Afterlife for them. They lived and died with iron-clad faith in that. They taught it to their daughters, who passed it on to their children. This process went back 150 generations.

"Do you ... do you really speak to the Goddess Ishara?" Madori asked, twisting her logical mind about the conundrum of my words: 'why her and not Alicia'? What had Alicia done wrong? Until I spoke on the matter, she had shoved such worry to the back of her mind. She was in a First House, which was the new center of her existence.

"Yes," I replied. I bit down on trying to insert a joke into this seriously spiritual moment.

"What does she tell you?" Madori uttered the words, but they were echoed in the face of every Isharan in the room.

"The messages vary. I have vomited out more blood in one session than I have in my entire body -- ask Buffy. I have been told to sleep with an Augur. Later she -- Dot Ishara, told me Tadêfi, the Augur, was going to die in premature childbirth and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. 'Why' I had to put an Isharan heir in Tadêfi has not been explained to me and probably never will."

"She likes fortune cookies. She is jealous of the Goddess SzélAnya because that goddess has saved my life ... twice. Dot Ishara has also intervened to save my life too. Of greater importance to me, she has spared Aya Epona when I begged for her help," I kept going. I had their rapt attention now.

What I was saying you couldn't put into a handbook, or normally pass from the uninitiated to the uninitiated.

"I have hated her for some of the misery I have committed at her request. I have served her without explanation because I acknowledge I am Ishara -- Wakko Ishara -- and this is what we Amazons do -- fight for our Matron Goddesses."