“All right.” He set his bowl aside and looked for hers, noting that she had eaten almost nothing. “You said you were hungry.”
“I am, but I can’t eat,” she said quietly. “You recall how you were able to go back in your memories, that time just after you bought me? Do you remember what that was like? And through that, I learned who you are?”
“I remember,” he said awkwardly.
“Then I will tell you how, and you will learn the same of me, and you will think me less a stranger than you do now.”
“You’re hardly a stranger to me, Surata,” he said, laughing a little, his voice turning warm.
“But I am. You know my body and a piece of my skill, but I am foreign to you. In some ways, I will always be, but it need not be as great a gulf as it is now.”
“If you wish it,” he said, feeling doubt as he studied her face. “I pray you will not…regret it.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “Build up the fire, if you will, Arkady-champion, and then I will tell you how you are to do this. Don’t be afraid.”
“Me? Afraid?” Arkady boasted. “I’m a soldier, and I…” His voice changed. “And I am afraid. Any sensible soldier is afraid in battle.”
“This isn’t battle,” Surata said. “How can you think that it could be when we have vanquished dragons and cages in the other place? You trusted me to be your weapon, but you cannot trust me to be myself.”
This brought him up short, and he stopped in his search for more broken benches to feed the fire in order to look at her closely. “You…you’re right. You’ve been my weapon and you have not faltered. Now I am failing you, and that is not honorable.” The last words caught in his throat and he had to force them out.
“You’re too severe,” she said gently. “If this were simply another battle, you wouldn’t hesitate or have doubts, you would decide if it was reasonable to fight and then you would do your best. But I am asking you to do something you have never done before, and to go where your skill and ability cannot help you. That requires more than just courage, it takes great trust.”
“The man who fights at my back must trust me, and I must trust him,” Arkady pointed out.
“In battle, certainly, but suppose you had to go back to the battlefield afterward, to account for the dead. What of the man who goes with you then?” She took an unsteady step toward him. “Arkady-immai, you are being prudent, not cowardly.”
He put his arm around her waist to brace her. “Be careful,” he warned her, but not entirely because of the risk of tripping. “Surata, I may not be as capable as you think I am.”
“That isn’t possible, Arkady-champion,” she said. “Tend to the fire. It may be a long night.”
“So it may,” he said, having no idea what he meant by his remark. He cleared a space for her by the fire and spread one of the blankets for her to sit on while he set about stacking the broken lengths of wood that long ago had been benches for the monks. As he ventured to the limits of the firelight, he saw an owl perched on the broken wall, its face perpetually indignant. Arkady had always had a fondness for owls, and he stopped working long enough to admire this particular bird until it sailed away silently into the dark.
Surata had spread out the other two blankets and had made two rough pillows of their saddlebags. She patted the blankets as Arkady added more wood to the fire. “Put your clothes here,” she said, indicating a place near her feet.
“We both need baths,” he said as he undressed. “Does that trouble you?”
“It’s inconvenient, but that’s all,” she said. “When we find another place with a bathhouse, or a pleasant river to wash in, we will do it.” As she said this, she began to get out of her clothes. “I am sorry that I can’t see how you look, Arkady-immai. My hands tell me you are very beautiful.”
This casual comment amazed him. “What?”
“Wait,” she advised. “Shortly you’ll understand.”
Chapter 11
Arkady took great care to follow Surata’s instructions as exactly as possible. He rubbed her feet and legs the way she said it should be done and tried to keep his mind on what she felt instead of his own reactions. But as he moved from her knees to her thighs, it became more difficult to forget she was a woman whose body pleasured him as no other had.
“It’s not wrong to think that,” she murmured as his hands grew still. “But that is not all there is to think of. You must start at the Four Petaled Center.”
Arkady’s face went crimson. “Surata…”
“Think of the strength there, not just your enjoyment, and try to sense how it flows to the rest of the Subtle Body.” Her words came slowly, almost as if she were dreaming.
“But…” He looked away.
“Arkady-champion, don’t deny what you feel, but don’t limit it, either. Go beyond what you have known. Learn what I know.” She made a quick gesture with her hand. “Arkady-champion, there is so much more than you have let yourself know.”
Swallowing hard, he began to rub her thighs once more, all the while doing his best to recall the prayers he had learned as a child that would protect him from sin. Most of the words were jumbled and he did not find the solace in them that he once had. He ached with desire. “I…I don’t know if I can…do…”
“You are not doing badly, Arkady-champion,” she whispered. “Move up, if you are troubled. Start with the Thirty-Two Petaled Center, but do not be put off by what you find there.” She reached out and put the palm of her hand to his abdomen. “It is better while we are linked.”
More than anything, he wanted to cover her with his body, to use her flesh to blot out the disturbing impressions that flitted through his mind. “I…Surata.”
“You can sense a little,” she said, softly but with great confidence. “Don’t hold back from it,” she said. “Arkady-champion, there is nothing to resist.”
The palms of his hand felt…strange, as if the skin were buzzing. He found it too alien to be pleasant, but not so unfamiliar that he could not continue. Instead, he let his thoughts drift, as Surata had told him before he began. He thought of hills and the way horses moved when they trotted.
There were five naked children in the large, artificial lake, and they swam together, laughing and splashing. Most of them were no more than four, though there was one who was a trifle older than the others, and it appeared to be his job to watch the younger ones. He kept reminding them that the water was teaching them to stop struggling, and by that, overcome the trials of the world. The cool water was so unlike the heat of the sun that the younger children paid little attention to what the older one said, and let the cascades of water cool them and hold them up.
“You see?” Surata said softly.
There was an old man, and he sat in the Virasana Posture, his body showing perfect poise. He spoke to Surata, who knelt beside him. “When the mind is steady, and the transcendent state achieved, then the lie of time becomes apparent.” Surata repeated this to her self several times, trying with a seven-year-old’s concentration to grasp what her teacher had said.
The walls were covered with pictures, showing every aspect and posture of union, and beneath, texts described the merit of each. Surata, in the Posture of the Cow Herder, studied all that she saw, and tried to ignore the ache in her knees. It was not long until sunset, when she would be permitted to cease her contemplations for the evening. The air smelled of lotus and burning amber incense. It had turned chilly, but Surata did not permit that to distract her from her learning. At ten, she had learned more than most of the other children, and she knew that she had been singled out for more rigorous studies. She wanted to be prepared for her next level of studies, where all she had been taught through instruction would be applied to her own exercises. That was more than a year away, but already she was eager. She said to herself, as she had been taught since she could remember, that it is not only what we do but how it is done that brings about self-realization, and from that, the way of transcendence.
Arkady felt his head, making sure that his beard was still there and his scar above his right eye. There had never been any sensation that was like the one he had experienced from—with?—Surata. He thought he was…her. He had known things, had assumed things that were entirely beyond him.
“There is more, Arkady-immai. Touch me again, and this time, choose the Center of Sixty-Four Petals,” she said to him, as relaxed as he was tense.
“Surata…Surata, I don’t know—”
Her hand closed on his. “Some of it is pleasant and some is not, but do not turn from it now, Arkady-champion. You are closer than before, aren’t you?”
He was not certain he understood what she meant, but he said, “Yes, I suppose I am,” and then he coughed once. “Surata, what was that place?”
“It was my home, Arkady-champion. I was a child there, as you were a child in Sól.”
“It is…beautiful,” he said, not used to the sights that were foreign and familiar at once.
“I have always thought so,” she said, smiling more openly. “And it is my thoughts you are sharing.”
“Is there more…you know the sorts of things I mean,” he said, embarrassment coming on him in a rush. “Those pictures and the way you watched them…”
“There is more. That shouldn’t surprise you. It is part of our teaching and our work,” she said. “Arkady-champion, there is no shame in what we do. That is the shame of your priests, who have tried to pretend that the body has no bearing on their lives, and only the spirit is worthy of attention. But it is not just your spirit that rides to battle; your body goes with it, and it is the body that swings the sword and takes the blows. Does that deserve nothing but a bandage and burnt food?”
Arkady balanced back, buttocks resting on heels, “No, I suppose that is short shrift.” He put his hands to her Heart Center. “Is this next?”
“It can be,” she said, breathing deeply several times. “Do your best, Arkady-champion. There is only benefit in learning.”
He thought of the captured Turks that the Margrave Fadey had ordered wrapped in the pages of a captured Koran, and then set afire, so that they and their heretical teaching should perish together. “I wonder if that’s so,” he said to the air.
“Learn of me, Arkady-champion, and decide for yourself.” Her relaxation was almost complete as he once again put his hands on her, this time in the declivity between her breasts.
Smoke billowed up from the funeral pyre, and rose petals burned with the body of Surata’s father. Many people, all of them with bronze skins and dark hair, stood around the pyre, most of them chanting or standing on one foot, in the Posture of the Stork in order to aid the transition of the soul from the confines of the earth to its new dwelling place. Surata tore her garments and wept, but her mourning was without guilt—to Arkady’s astonishment—and her loss did not consume her. She threw incense and flowers into the fire, then pulled off all her clothes and threw them in, too.
“What of your mother?” Arkady asked, blinking against tears.
“She died long ago. Her body was discovered on the steps of the Temple of Ganesha. Her throat had been cut.” She reported this with little emotion, which puzzled Arkady.
“Doesn’t that…bother you?” he asked.
“Yes. It troubled me then, though I was only five years old. The Bundhi sent his men to my father and the others, saying that as long as new alchemists were trained for the Right Hand Path, he would kill those who could breed more, until they gave up their folly.” She turned on her side. “I am the only female child who lived past the age of eleven, and that was only because I was carefully guarded and knew how to protect myself.”
Arkady could say nothing at first. “I thought…you’ll have to forgive me for this, Surata, but I thought from what you said, and what I’ve…glimpsed, that there was little…trouble in your childhood. I thought it was…study and pleasure.”
“Much of it was,” she said carefully. “But there was always the other. I never forgot that.”
“Didn’t you ever…think about leaving? It would have been safer.” He wished he could take her into his arms to shield her as she had shielded him in the other place, but he was aware that she did not want that from him, not now. “Is there more?”
“Much more,” she said quietly. “Do you want to see it, or do you want to…stop?”
“No. Not enough to…” He let his mind drift once again. He thought back to all the preparations for battle, and the constant trouble with supply. His hands trembled and he threw his head back as her memories displaced his.
The man was young, certainly less than thirty, and yet his hair was white and his features so haggard that he might have been closer to sixty. He staggered through the courtyard of Surata’s home, his progress unimpeded by servants or relatives, for they all recognized Adri, Surata’s youngest uncle, who had gone half a year ago to attempt to enlist the aid of other adepts in their struggles with the Bundhi. He fell to his knees by the fountain and tried to scoop out a handful of water, but he was shaking so badly that he could not do it. Everyone watching recognized the omen’s intent and they withdrew as quickly as they could. One of the oldest servants went to summon Surata, who had been occupied with her studies in another wing of the house, or so they thought. She had seen Adri arrive from the window of her private chamber and had watched him with dread. She had been closer to Adri than any of the others and she knew he was lost to her forever.
The magician was known as Dandin, and as his name implied, he carried a staff. It was taller than he, and made of bamboo. He held it with great care as he entered the temple where Surata was preparing to be initiated. He made a courteous salutation, then came directly to the point. “I am an agent of the Bundhi, and he has given me orders to seek you out in order to warn you.” “Why should you warn me?” Surata asked, though she knew that there could be no beneficial intent in the man or his master. “You are embarked on great foolishness, but you have a chance to refuse. Draw back before it is too late and spare yourself much suffering. What is the point in prolonging the way of the world when it leads to nothing but horror and ruin? It is time for the earth to be over and done, to return to the darkness forever.” Surata heard him out. “Darkness and light are dependent one on the other, Dandin, and if your master is to achieve what he wishes, he will need light to balance him.” “There is no balance, and you are deceiving yourself to try to create it, for it cannot be done.” He held out the staff. “If you refuse, be warned that the time will come when this staff will feast on your entrails.” “You have warned me, and you may tell your master that,” she said with a calm that was as disturbing to her as it was to him. “The Wheel turns for all of us, and if it is my Path to be vanquished by your master, then it will happen. No one escapes karma.” She reached for the mallet for a little gong by her side. “You are only compounding your error, Surata of the Bogar House.” She rang the gong and said nothing more until Dandin had been escorted from her presence.
The two oldest adepts brought her news of the omens and sat with her as she listened to them repeat what they had learned. “You may have power, but it is finite, and you will have to choose how you wish to apply it. There are many turns in your path, and where it will lead is up to you. The Bundhi will pursue you relentlessly until your power is gone or given over to him.” Surata nodded slowly. “And the others?” “They say that this house will have no more women. You are the last of them. When you are gone, it will depend on the turning of the Wheel and the malice of the Bundhi if there will ever be another. As long as the Bundhi has power, ours will be reduced.” Surata placed her hands to her head. “It does not all lie with me!” she protested. “No, but much of it does. You may do much with a champion, but to find him, you will have to call him from far off and seek him in faraway lands.” Surata ran from the room, and would not see the two old adepts for more than four days.
“Then you expected to find me,” Arkady said, straightening up.
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“No,” Surata responded. “I thought when the Bundhi blinded me that I was lost and that the little power I had left would do me no good since I was a slave far from my own land. I called out because to do anything else was more defeat than I could bear.” She took his hand in both of hers. “Arkady-champion, when I felt you answer my call, I knew hope for the first time since my sight was taken.”
“I gave you hope?” he asked, pleased and dubious at once.
“More than I had ever known, because my despair had been so great until then.”
He laughed aloud. “My priest said that God is seen from the depths of the abyss, or something of that sort.” He touched her face with the fingertips of his free hand. “Surata, don’t give yourself any more pain.”
“There are just a few more things, Arkady-champion,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” he said more emphatically.
“Yes; I do.” She directed her sightless eyes at his. “You need not be part of it, but I must do this for myself. I have stirred up so much that I have to go on. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Right,” he said, feeling a kind of defeat as he said it. “I will do what I must. In the throat now?” He had already touched her neck, and started the gentle rubbing that brought his palms down on the place he could tell was a Center.
The Bundhi was not a monster—he was, in fact, slightly more than average height with a face that was remarkable only for its immobility and the flatness of his eyes. He paced through the rooms of the Temple of Siva, apparently unaware of the bodies that lay scattered everywhere, all of them with their intestines pulled out of gaping wounds. He did not permit any of his servants to walk with him or to approach him while he completed his inspection. “And the young woman, have you got her?” he asked Vadin. “Yes, Great Lord,” Vadin said from his prostrate position. “We have her. We have done nothing to her, as you ordered.” His bamboo staff, lying by his side, seemed to shimmer and move as he spoke. “Bring her here to me. I want to see her for myself.” He folded his arms, his larger staff in his hand still. “I do not wish to wait long for her.” Vadin crawled backward out of the Bundhi’s presence and returned almost at once with Mayon and two others leading Surata. “So much for one woman,” Mayon said, and was struck hard with the Bundhi’s staff for his words. “You are Surata,” the Bundhi said to her, ignoring the others. “You do not need to ask that,” she replied. “You know that as well as you know who all those you have killed were.” Her head was high, but there was a sadness about her mouth and a tone to her voice that gave away her despair to her enemy. “You are going to be offered one more chance, Surata,” the Bundhi informed her as he strolled nearer. “You may come to me as my servant, give your power—which I admit is considerable—over to me, and I will forget all that you have done to oppose me. I will honor your accomplishments by permitting you to aid me in my work. Think before you refuse,” he warned her. “You will be allowed to touch my body when I need touching, and to be tool of my transcendence.” He paced around Surata, his expression never changing. “Everything I have heard of you says that you have great dedication and abilities. Think of how well you could use that for me.” He paused, and the silence lengthened. There was a scorn in Surata’s clear, dark eyes that was more scathing than words. “Remember: whatever happens, you have brought it on yourself.” “If you do not wish me to oppose you, you will have to kill me,” Surata said without fear. “Kill you? So that you can return again to the body and perhaps battle me again?” The Bundhi did nothing so human as laugh: he clicked his tongue as if coaxing a recalcitrant animal. “I will deal with you more sensibly. If you are far away, in a place where no one knows you or your skills, or even your language, you will be in a stronger prison than stones and iron can make. I will sell you, slave that you are, to a distant land.” “I will come back,” she vowed. “Though it take this life, and every life to come, I will return.” “It is regrettable that you are so stubborn. What is there left for you?” he asked, waving his arm to indicate the desolation around him. “Your citadel is gone, and you have no place to anchor another in the daily world, have you?” Surata prepared herself for the blade in her stomach, or the terrible predation of a bamboo staff. She did not think he would spare her long agony before death, for he had not spared the others any pain or indignity. She thought he would destroy her, but she was mistaken. The pain in her head was worse than if her brain was boiling. She staggered, her hands pressed against her ears as the Bundhi continued to lean his bamboo staff against her forehead, its hungry mouth pressed between her eyes. “You do not have to endure this, Surata. You have only your stubbornness to blame for this.” She felt that rats were in her skull, with millions of sharp teeth. Her vision swam, and then she could see nothing as the Bundhi laughed, a sound like falling pebbles. “Take her far, far to the west and sell her to a slave merchant.” Surata, still reeling inwardly, turned too quickly and fell, landing against one of the bodies of her kinsmen. “You did not think I would be merciful, did you, Surata? After you have denied me what I want from you? Death is much too easy for you. Think of what you have lost, both here and in that other place. Think of what is to come, of the long days and years in darkness and isolation without a citadel in this daily world to return to, and no means of reaching that other place. Mayon, see that she is sold and that she does not return.” His footsteps and the tap of his staff receded in her darkness.
To the High Redoubt Page 16
