The Ambassador: At Ras’alhague

The Ambassador: At Ras’alhague

by Terri Morgan

Micha Lawrence has just arrived on Ras 2. She finally received an invitation to enter the elite training program to become an Adept and a Keeper of one of the Five Elements. If she graduates, she has a chance to achieve her dream of becoming a First Contact Ambassador. She is determined to do whatever it takes. But the trip has been awful. She got in late and the guard at the ferry to the South Coast didn’t want to let her through. Then, the clerk at the reception center told her she had to be at the gate for something called “selections” before dawn. She was so tired. She wanted to but she was not going to oversleep. So she made some hot water, took the last of the coffee she brought out of her bag, and waited. It was still dark when she left her room. A few of the other recruits had started gathering near the main gate.

The Masters of Ras’alhague kept the planet closed. They didn’t want tourists. Only a few places were open for trade. An invitation was required to travel to most places. The training program was designed to reveal the character of the person and build the skills the person would need. It was supposed to be hard. Not all the trainees would graduate. Those who did would become Keepers of one of the Five Elements: Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth. They would also choose the Colors for their robes.

It was rare to have five students in the same generation who could become the Five Elements. Very rare.

As they begin their training, Micha and her new friends Sentar, Maru, Galen, and B’ani discover that in order to succeed, they must trust themselves and each other. They also learn that Master Tai has ways of leading them to the answers they weren’t looking for but needed to find.

The stories offer a rare glimpse into the inner world of traditional martial arts training.

They focus on the good guys, their training, and their character. They are human stories about how we learn, grow, develop our skills, and then pass on what we have learned to the next generations.

The stories are written for adults at a high-school reading level. Using movie ratings, they would be G/PG-rated. Themes include philosophical questions – is this the right thing to do? how do we gain trust? what is ‘good’ character? There are nuances (no profanity) in the ways the characters talk with each other that younger children would not understand without explanations. Curious teens and young adults will like the stories quite a lot.

Throughout the stories, the key idea is that what may seem too difficult isn’t, not when we have good friends. The focus is on taking care of each other, what honor, integrity, honesty, and kindness mean, how we pass on what we have learned and bring up the next generations, and all sorts of positive character questions that are fundamental to the traditional martial arts.