“Copy the final lesson,” said the elder. She handed Oran a clay tablet without a mark on it.
At the Temple of the Perforated Rackets, he had learnt all three hundred teachings. Prepare early. Recover the middle. Honour the partner. Let the wall return what force cannot. He could answer before a teacher finished asking. An unusual bounce still made him argue.
He searched the archives for the missing inscription. He asked masters and compared translations. Finally he carved every teaching into the tablet, so closely that the letters blackened the clay.
The elder dropped it. She gave him another blank one and asked him to play.
Her balls were slow and awkward. His advanced returns kept losing points. At last Oran looked at her body before contact, softened his grip and sent one plain ball deep through the middle.
She bowed. “Write what you learned.”
Oran left the tablet empty.
When he became a teacher, he still made his students study the old forms. They learnt the three hundred teachings and found the blank tablet among them. After a rally, he would invite them to look at it again.