He taught them the Five Mantras of Primal

He taught them the Five Mantras of Primal

**of Note**

Creation, each a chant to summon in the listener’s mind the elements that made up the world, including spirit. Proper vocalization of these mantras could ground one in the True Gaia Realm and strip away delusions haunting the mind and body. Their pronunciation was well beyond the skill of the two cubs, but they swore to practice them over the years to come, to one day master their sounds.

Finally, however, the idyll came to an end.

It was announced that only one of them could stay to join the sept and help guard the caern.

Such was the Stargazer way; only one student would be accepted.

Antonine and Wen both wanted to stay.

They could not agree on which one would leave and soon fell to fighting, calling one another names, their rage rising, threatening to burst forth into bloodshed.

The monks pulled them apart. The lama declared that they would indeed fight to see who had the right to stay, since it was the form they had chosen. But they were Stargazers, and so must fight as Stargazers. The duel was to be fought with Kailindo, the tribe’s special martial art that involved subduing an opponent rather than clawing him to pieces. What’s more, whichever cub succumbed to rage would be automatically declared the loser and forced to leave the caern.

Antonine and Wen were separated for a week as monks taught them each the basics of Kailindo.

It came easy to them, for they were already adept in Laughing Crane’s human style martial arts. As the day of the duel approached, Antonine grew morose.

He had never intended this journey to result in the loss of a friend. He remembered the destiny given him in the stars at the conjunction rite. As a Half Moon, it was his duty to bring others together, not tear them apart with bickering. But he also desperately wanted to stay. The Shigalu Monastery was the most important caem. To become one of its caretakers meant unrivaled access to lore in the years to come. How could he forego that? Surely Wen would understand this if Antonine won the contest, and not hold it against him.

On the night of the duel, Antonine noticed clutches of unknown Stargazers at the caem. Apparently, others had come from nearby septs to wimess the duel. Antonine felt a wave of shame. If he had not fallen to fighting with Wen in the first place, this could have been resolved with a riddle contest or through other intellectual means, such as a duel of knowledge or lore. It was his own anger that had brought on a fight.

A sparse circle of smooth rock had been prepared as the fight zone. Wen waited on the opposite side, looking just as nervous and apprehensive as Antonine. The chief lama rang a bell and all the other monks stepped away to watch from the shadows of the surrounding rocks.