The Chaos Sutra

by Gregg Vann

  “I don’t know you,” Tien said. “Where is Brother Dyson? Or Kiva?”

  “Kiva didn’t survive the war,” Ryll replied, gazing down at his feet.

  The monk then tried to stand, but one of the guards pushed him back down into the chair. “Sit.”

  “I’m afraid I have to go,” Boe said. “I have a training session with a group of our fledgling pilots. We’ve already established that this human is no threat to Obas, so I’ll leave his fate to you. Speaker Lews said you can do with him as you will. Good luck.”

  “Thank you,” Tien replied.

  “Of course.”

  Boe departed, closing the door behind him.

  Speaker Lews assigned the Obas pilot to serve as a personal liaison to Tien, due to their history together during the Brenin War. But over the past year and a half, the pair had actually become friends…of a sort.

  “You must help me,” Ryll pleaded.

  Tien turned his attention back to the dirty and disheveled monk. “Help you do what, exactly?”

  “Brother Dyson has been kidnapped. You have to save him.”

  “Kidnapped?” Tien repeated, stepping in closer to stare down at the monk’s face. He searched for any telltale signs of deception. “Kidnapped by who? And assuming what you say is true, why should I help you? I owe the Bodhi nothing. My debt to you for saving my wife and child has long been paid—in full.” Tien conjured up a few harsh memories of the mission Dyson sent him on during the war, and then added, “More than full.”

  Brother Ryll was undeterred. “If you’ll convince the Obas to let me contact Bodhi Prime, I’m sure I can some up with something to make it worth your trouble. I can get you anything you wish. Anything at all.”

  “I am not a mercenary,” Tien said dismissively.

  “But you have the skills we need; it has to be you. Miso is dangerous, extremely so. And this requires someone… Well, someone like you.”

  “Miso? Who is Miso? No, never mind. Just forget it. I’m not interested.”

  Ryll sensed he was losing him and the monk’s voice became more desperate. “Anything you want, Tien. Anything. Surely there is something you need. Just name it!”

  “Face it, monk, you have nothing I want. And I’ll not abandon my family to go on some dubious mission for your order.” The recent assassination attempt invaded Tien’s thoughts—souring his mood further, and strengthening his resolve to not leave Dasi and Nsari unprotected. “I’m not going anywhere, for any reason. Especially now.” Tien addressed the two guards. “Release him, and let him go on his way. He’s no Udek spy, just a lost and harmless monk.”

  “Please,” Ryll said, leaning forward to lock eyes with Tien. “At least give me the opportunity to explain everything. Brother Dyson took a chance on you, Tien. Remember that!”

  Ryll immediately regretted the outburst and sank back into his chair, desperate to get away as Tien’s apathy exploded into anger. “And I paid dearly for that chance!” Tien snapped. “We made a deal, and we both got what we wanted in the end. You act as if Brother Dyson resurrected Dasi out of kindness. He used me, monk. Dyson hung my wife’s life out in front of me like a prize to be won. And don’t omit the part where he placed me inside a dead body, and then sent me out to infiltrate the Brenin fleet. You have no idea what I did to earn our lives…what I went through. Brother Dyson didn’t give me anything.”

  Ryll struggled to find his voice. And when the young monk spoke he did so cautiously, understanding that he’d pushed too far. “But he let you escape, Tien. Don’t you see? My master could have easily turned you over to the Udek. And for his own sake, he probably should have. Brother Dyson took a tremendous risk on your behalf, and you wouldn’t be standing here now if he hadn’t defied your enemies.”

  Tien pondered Ryll’s words for a moment, realizing there might be some truth to them. Brother Dyson had helped Tien and Dasi get off Bodhi Prime undetected, sneaking right past the Udek warship waiting in orbit to take them back to the Confederation. He’d also saved the life of Tien’s son, and that unexpected boon hadn’t been part of their original agreement. Brother Dyson had done more than he’d promised, that much was undeniable. And it wasn’t his fault the Udek learned Tien was still alive, or that he and his family had been granted asylum on Obas. Tien decided, begrudgingly, that it wouldn’t hurt anything to give the monk a chance to explain the situation. And in a surprise even to himself, Tien was curious to find out what had happened to Dyson.

  “Very well,” he said. “You can tell me about Brother Dyson’s kidnapping.” Tien waggled the sling immobilizing his damaged arm from side to side, drawing Ryll’s attention to it. “But take a good look at me, monk. And this is only the damage you can see. Even if you could convince me to get involved in this, which I doubt, I am in no shape to carry out a mission—of any sort. Not for at least another month, and possibly even longer. Based on your level of panic, and how dangerous you say this Miso is, I doubt Brother Dyson has that kind of time. Unfortunately, I think your efforts here are likely wasted.”

  Ryll again moved to stand. But this time, the guards didn’t stop him. “Your arm is irrelevant, Tien. I can do something about that. I know I can. Allow me to give you the details of what happened—plead my case, and explain why you should help. And believe me, Tien, you should help. Then, if you’ll point me toward a communications panel, I’ll get to work on taking your injuries out of the equation altogether.”

  When Tien didn’t object the monk grinned, sensing the momentum of the moment shifting in his direction. Ryll’s tension eased, convinced that he’d come to the right place—and sought out the right man. Everything would work out now, Brother Ryll just knew it.

  But Tien was already beginning to have second thoughts about the whole affair.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brother Dyson awoke to a great nothingness.

  No sight.

  No sound.

  No sense of touch.

  No sense of being.

  Time had passed—that he knew—and not in the abstract sense, but a definite, linear progression. He could feel it. But how long?

  Dyson reached out with his thoughts but his mind felt hemmed in, corralled and restrained like an animal on a short leash, surrounded by impenetrable walls. He focused on this limited self-awareness with all of his might, a taxing and immense burst of will, but Brother Dyson’s perception sharpened by only an infinitesimal amount.

  There were hard limits to what he could think, and maddening pauses when he tried to form complex thoughts. Dyson’s mind was hobbled, restrained and retarded in a manner that he couldn’t quite comprehend. Like a machine running in fits and starts, sputtering in and out of service as its fuel cells ran dry. The monk struggled to form a series of cogent inquires—to make sense of what had happened to him.

  When? No, that didn’t seem so important right now.

  Why? Yes… Maybe that.

  No, no, no, Dyson realized.

  He needed to know what, and where.

  What happened to me? And where am I?

  Then he remembered.

  Miso killed him.

  Brother Dyson was in a soul chamber.

  But this… This was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. This didn’t feel right; the machine was damaged. Dyson’s mind was heavily segmented, fractured into hundreds of distinct pieces by the alterations Miso made to the device during his years of entrapment. It was an alarming discovery, one even more troubling than the knowledge of his own murder, but Brother Dyson managed to calm himself. At least he knew where he was now, and what he was. So the old monk understood exactly what he must do next.

  Dyson worked his crippled mind hard to remember the layout of the soul chamber, meticulously sifting through cache after cache of priceless information and useless ephemera alike—collected over centuries of influence and introspection. Brother Dyson’s mind held secrets that could reshape governments, and topple entire regimes, yet it all meant precisely nothing at
the moment. Power is contextual, and always slave to scale. A gun may be a formidable weapon, but not if your civilization is destroyed from orbit. And a person’s location seems like an innocuous piece of information, unless provided to an assassin sent to kill them.

  Context matters.

  Dyson knew the correct placement of all the necessary pathways. After all, he’d helped devise the construct. He also understood how to reconfigure the matrix to better suit his needs. If only he could access those memories… There! Dyson mapped out the proper conduits and began expanding his mind, reaching across the chamber’s byzantine labyrinth of storage partitions and overflow shunts to locate and assemble the entirety of himself. He swiftly established robust connections between all of his constituent pieces, reclaiming his full mental capacity and cognitive power, and then Brother Dyson took inventory.

  He was here.

  He was whole.

  At least there was that.

  With his own situation now understood and improved, Dyson began to consider events outside his new reality. When he was last aware, Brother Ryll had been injured—left unconscious, and trapped on the ship with Miso. Dyson wondered what had become of him. Was Brother Ryll still alive? The old monk thought not, and it pained him greatly. This was all Dyson’s fault—and he knew it. He’d been so desperate for Miso’s return that it blinded his judgment. He should have seen the signs earlier, noticed the hints of madness before it was too late. But he didn’t, and now Brother Ryll was gone. Just like Kiva… Despite his own desperate predicament, Brother Dyson feared for his acolyte’s soul. But before he could begin to grieve for it, he felt a strong disturbance coursing through the soul chamber, approaching from every direction at once.

  It was alien.

  And unnatural.

  It was not him.

  Dyson suddenly realized that he was not alone. Something else was in here with him. Something malevolent. It rose up from the blackest depths of nothingness, and came pouring in through the unyielding borders that his own mind couldn’t cross—surging toward him like a tsunami of writhing hatred, and pure, undiluted malice.

  It struck his mind with a force beyond imagination…

  And Brother Dyson screamed.

  “Yes, yes,” Brother Ryll repeated into the comm unit, his frustration on full display. “Don’t argue with me, Brother. Just do it. This is an emergency.”

  The cowed prisoner was gone, Tien noticed, replaced by a proficient bureaucrat. Ryll was using a headset on a secure channel so Tien could only hear one side of the conversation—and even that was couched in technical terms and designations he didn’t recognize. But he’d heard enough to know that Ryll’s determination was genuine. The monk really would do anything he could to get Brother Dyson back.

  “Send one of them fully outfitted,” Ryll continued in clipped, agitated tones. “Yes, yes, yes. I said fully. And include all of the necessary support equipment as well. No, I am very serious. Hire out the fastest transport ship you can find; I don’t care what it costs. And get everything here yesterday. Good…good. And you’re absolutely certain about Miso’s location? No doubt at all? Buddha help us. All right then, Brother, move quickly.”

  “Well?” Tien asked. “What did you find out? Where are they?”

  Ryll rotated away from the console to face him; the monk appeared somber, yet highly motivated. Ryll’s unrelenting zeal was frustrating, and it grated on Tien’s nerves. But he much preferred it to the near mania Ryll had shown when sharing the details of what happened to Brother Dyson.

  “As I explained to you while the Obas were setting up the connection to Prime, we can locate Miso using the soul chamber where his consciousness resides. It emits a tracking signal just for that purpose.”

  “And Miso can’t block it?” Tien said. “From what you’ve told me about him he seems very clever, and the way he deceived you and murdered Brother Dyson leads me to believe he’s also quite capable—remorseless as well.”

  “Yes.” Ryll sighed. “Miso is smart. I won’t deny it. But he can’t mask the tracking signal. Not easily, anyway. It doesn’t really matter though, because he hasn’t even tried. And now I know why. Miso has gone somewhere that is…well, difficult to reach.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Tien replied. “Or the expression on your face. Where is he?”

  “Miso has taken Brother Dyson to the Udek home world. I’m afraid they’re on Ko’ln.”

  Tien tensed at the mention of his birthplace, his eyes widening just a fraction. “Well then, monk,” he stated matter-of-factly, “it appears your mission has ended before it even began. Brother Dyson is gone—for good. For what it’s worth, I’m not all that happy about it either. What you said earlier is true. Dyson could have sold us out back on Bodhi Prime, and turning us over to the Udek would have made his life much easier. But he didn’t do it, and I won’t forget that.”

  “But you can go there!” Ryll protested loudly. “You’re a spy, Tien. You can sneak in and free him. It’s what you do!”

  Tien laughed. It was a rare thing, and sounded strange—even to his own ears. “Tell me, Brother Ryll, exactly how long were you alone inside that little escape pod? You’ve completely lost your mind. Or maybe it’s the head injury causing your cognitive issues. Either way, Ko’ln is the last place in the galaxy where I can show my face. There’s an extremely long list of people on that planet who’d love nothing more than to see me dead. So many, in fact, that they’d probably have to fight among themselves first, just to see who got the honor of taking my life. Anyone but me would be a better choice for this mission.”

  “But you infiltrated Nilot! And single-handedly dealt a crushing blow to the entire Brenin invasion force. It has to be you, Tien.”

  “As someone once pointed out to me, Brother Ryll, I died on Nilot. And the war went on after my mission to foment infighting between the Brenin clans. For a little while, anyway.”

  Ryll lowered his voice and leaned forward, as if sharing a secret. His tone was conspiratorial. “I know about the assassins, Tien. The ones Special Corp keeps sending here to kill you. Some of them—their stored patterns, anyway—made their way to Bodhi Prime for rebirth. After their…um, failures. Though only a fraction, I’m sure.”

  “And?”

  “And! But don’t you see? This is your chance, Tien. You can go to Ko’ln and stop the people trying to kill you, keep them from sending any more assassins, and of course, rescue Brother Dyson.”

  “Assuming that were even possible—which it isn’t—anyone I killed on Ko’ln would only be resurrected later to seek revenge. If anything, your proposal would exacerbate my problems.”

  “Not if we didn’t bring them back,” Ryll said.

  “In which case they would just get the Volasi to do it.”

  Brother Ryll shook his head emphatically. “The Volasi are refusing to work with the Udek. There’s a lot of friction between the two races now that all of the avarock exports are going to the Obas. I believe you are intimately familiar with that particular arrangement.”

  “You seem well informed, for a monk.” Tien observed.

  “We Bodhi are connected. Everyone knows that.”

  “Yes, Brother Ryll.” Tien smirked. “So I hear. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to remove the person pushing for my death the hardest—the Special Corp Chancellor—it would do one of two things: either make me a larger target, placing even more people behind the trigger, or it would convince those in power that it’s no longer worth the trouble to continue pursuing me. My operational knowledge grows more stale every day. So as a threat to the Udek government, I’m becoming less of a concern with each hour that passes. That means the ongoing effort to kill me has become more personal than tactical. Even the help I’m providing the Obas shouldn’t make the Udek this determined—repeatedly infiltrating another world just to get to me. They’re courting a future, full-on confrontation with the Obas if they keep this up. They have to know that. So maybe if I can remove th
e one man spurring this all on, Awi Stenth—the hardliner hell-bent on seeing me dead—it might just make a difference. I may actually be able to defuse this.”

  “You see,” Brother Ryll said hopefully. “It all makes sense.”

  Tien fell into an empty seat next to the monk, giving Ryll an amused look. “This is about as far from making sense as you can get,” he replied. “Just traveling to Ko’ln would be a massive undertaking, not to mention arriving on the ground in one piece to carry out the mission. The Ko’ln Interdiction Zone is an effective barrier, and deserving of its reputation. And then there’s tracking down and taking out my target—a well-protected, seasoned operative in his own right, always in a secured location. Add to that finding your errant leader, freeing him from his captor, and then getting back off the planet again undetected. It would take a tremendous amount of money and resources to even consider something like this.”

  “We’ll provide anything you require,” Ryll offered enthusiastically. “Just tell me what you need, Tien, and the Bodhi will make it happen.”

  “Launch a clandestine assassination and rescue mission on Ko’ln?” Tien mused aloud, as if saying it would somehow make the task more plausible. “It would certainly cause second thoughts about pursuing me any further. My enemies would realize that they aren’t as insulated from retaliation as they once believed. If I could take out the puppet master—kill Stenth—it would make others far more reluctant to pull those same strings in the future…to come after me, or my family. Maybe going on the offensive is the answer.”

  Tien recalled the promise he’d made to Dasi—that if an opportunity presented itself to better their situation, he would take it. He gave Ryll a questioning glance. “But how can you promise me anything? You’re just a monk. Dyson is the leader on Prime.”

  “I am Brother Dyson’s chief administrative disciple. With him, well…away, I’m in complete charge of all Bodhi affairs. The more senior monks detest any contact with worldly matters, and don’t participate in the day-to-day running of the monastery. They choose to focus all of their attention on meditation, following the path to true enlightenment. So the coffers, the real power of the monastery, fall under my purview. I assure you, Tien, the full resources of Bodhi Prime are now at my disposal, and therefore, yours. I can get you whatever you need. Anything at all.”