Lance Kyo

Kyo had learned the weight of his one direction when he was young and reckless, on a wide-open board where he'd thought his speed made him unbeatable.

He had seen an enemy piece a long way up the file — an easy target, undefended, just sitting there — and he had charged. Straight up the lane, fast as thought, the whole valley blurring past. It was glorious for about two seconds. Then he realized, too late, that the piece hadn't been undefended at all; it had been bait, with a general lurking just behind it. And Kyo, who had flung himself all the way up the board with no way to turn around, no way to retreat, could only stand there in the open while the trap closed.

He was captured that day, and he spent a long while afterward turned around in enemy colours (for that is how the valley works — a fallen piece comes back on the other side) thinking hard about what had gone wrong.

It was not his speed that had failed him. It was not even his one direction. It was that he had used the biggest, most committing move he had without thinking first. A charge you cannot take back is a wonderful thing to own and a dangerous thing to spend carelessly. "I don't have to be less committed," he decided, up there in the wrong colours. "I have to be more careful about when I commit."

When he eventually came back around to his own side — as everyone in the valley eventually does — Kyo was the same tall forward-only lance he'd always been. But he had learned to look before he leapt, and that made all the difference.

The message from the House of Study reached Kyo the way messages always reached him: it came up the road, and he charged down to meet it, and arrived rather faster than expected.

"A lance," said the Head of the House, considering him. "One direction. No retreat. Some would call that a limited teacher."

"Some would," Kyo agreed. He had heard it before. "But every student you have is afraid of committing to anything — afraid to pick a plan, afraid to push, afraid that if they choose a lane they'll be stuck in it. I am stuck in my lane. And I can show them that being stuck in a good lane, at the right moment, is the strongest thing on the board." He drew himself up to his considerable height. "The trick isn't to keep all your options open forever. The trick is to know the moment worth spending them on."

"Show me," said the Head, "that you know the difference between a brave charge and a foolish one, and you may stay."

Kyo did. It took him three careful turns of waiting — waiting was the hardest thing a lance ever did — and then one clean, unstoppable, perfectly-timed rush. The Head of the House nodded slowly, the way she did when a piece had understood something most of them never would.

Kyo's student was a hesitant girl named Mei who could never commit to anything. She would line up a plan, then abandon it. Push a piece forward, then pull it back. Start an attack, lose her nerve, and undo it — so that she was always busy and never actually got anywhere.

"You move like someone trying to walk in every direction at once," Kyo told her. "Watch me. I can only go one way. Forward. And because that's all I can do, I have to be sure before I do it." He waited. He waited some more. Mei fidgeted. And then, when the lane finally opened exactly right, Kyo charged — one long, clean, committed rush all the way up the board, straight into the heart of the enemy position.

"There," he said, arriving. "I didn't do that because I was brave. I did it because I waited for the moment it was true, and then I gave it everything. You keep half-committing to everything. Try fully committing to one thing — but pick the moment first."

Mei looked at her own scattered, half-finished plans. Then, carefully, she chose one — just one — and waited, the way Kyo had, until it was right. And then she pushed, and did not pull back, and for the first time her turn actually arrived somewhere.

"It's frightening," she said, "not being able to undo it."

"It is," said Kyo honestly. "That's how you know it counts."