“Because I can…touch it. Not as you and I touch, but there are other ways. This guardian is strong and does not want this spring to be contaminated with such as the Bundhi. The spring is restorative.”
Was it because they had been in the sun and heat and emptiness for so long that Surata imagined this? Arkady asked himself. Why did she want to convince him that they had stumbled upon anything more miraculous than water? “Surata, there’s no reason…”
When he did not go on, she turned toward him. “The guardian cannot harm us, Arkady-immai. It will not harm foxes, either, or the other animals. It will be kind to your horse.”
He thought her words were madness but he said nothing. “I’ve got feed for the horse. I ought to find something we can eat, Surata. The water is wonderful and without it we would be dead, but we must have food.”
“There is a fig tree up the hill and behind an outcropping of stones. It was planted long ago to give food to the guardian.” She waved him away. “Find that tree, Arkady-immai. Then we will eat.”
He supposed, as he left the cave, that he would have to do her the service of looking. It would be difficult to tell her that he found nothing. He went with growing regret, for it pained him to consider how their ordeal had changed her. As he made the climb up the hill, he did his best to think of ways he could ease the distress that had so clearly taken hold of Surata. “Guardians,” he said to the air. “Guardian beings taking care of springs!” He was able to scoff now, where she could not hear him and he would not have to see her anguish.
Near the brow of the hill there was an outcropping of rocks, and this surprised him more than he liked to admit. He stood looking at it, deciding at last that in an area like this, she would know there had to be occasional outcroppings of rocks. There was nothing significant in finding it, he insisted to himself.
Behind the rocks stood an old fig tree, the ground beneath it sticky with fallen figs. Flies and other insects droned among them. Arkady stood staring at it for some time, then went cautiously toward it, expecting to find it gone. But the smell was real, and the leaves rustled in the wind, and when he pulled one of the remaining figs off its stem, it was believable enough. Shaken, Arkady peeled back the skin and bit into the rich, sweet fruit.
He came back to the cave with the leather pail full of figs. On the way, he had given three to his horse and watched the gelding extend his neck and half-close his eyes with pleasure. As he entered the cave, he called out to Surata, adding, “They were there,” rather sheepishly.
“The guardian said the tree was—” she began, only to have him cut her off.
“I doubted you. I thought that…” He could not go on.
“You thought that I had gone mad. But you see, I had not. The guardian is real and has told me things we must know. Now I tell these things to you, so that you can get food for us and keep us safe.”
“It’s too bad we had to leave the tent behind. In a place like this, it would be pleasant to have it to climb into.” He sat beside her and held out a fig. “Here. There’s more.” While he watched her eat, he had another fig himself. “We shouldn’t eat too much. It’s like the water, it could make us sick.”
“Three figs will not destroy us,” she said lightly. “Oh, this is so good.”
By nightfall, Arkady had been guided to more food by Surata, who insisted that her information came from the guardian of the spring. He accepted this unwillingly but could think of no other explanation for her remarkable knowledge. It was against everything he had been taught, and he said this to her as they pulled their blankets up to their necks that night.
“But you’ve said that you believe in devas, winged spirits—”
“Angels,” he supplied.
“Yes, that guard you. And you said that there are miraculous shrines that your holy men protect. How is this any different?” She stretched one last time before securing her blanket.
“It…it is.” he was as puzzled by his answer as she was. “This isn’t a Saint or the Virgin, or…I don’t know what it is.”
Surata touched him gently. “Arkady-champion, that is why you don’t want to believe it is there—because you don’t know what it is, and that troubles you. You cannot trust it, as you do not always trust what I tell you that you cannot verify for yourself. If calling this…guardian a saint or an angel will make you less apprehensive, then call it one of those things.”
“And how do you know that it isn’t a demon or…anything like that?” He was being stubborn, and he acknowledged it to himself, though not to her.
“If it were malignant, those tigers would be here, and we would not. The guardian is neither of the Right nor the Left Hand Path. The guardian keeps to its own way and will not permit those that are not peaceable to come here. The tigers are not peaceable, and for that reason, they cannot find this place. If the guardian did not have this power, the Bundhi would know where we are, and he would have taken some action against us by now, because we are weak, and we’re…in no condition to reach the other place, let alone battle him or anyone once we reached there.” She paused, then pointed out, “We have food, don’t we? And water? Then stop asking so many questions and be glad that we stumbled onto this spring.”
There was nothing he wanted to do more, but the uncertainties nagged at him. “If neither the Right nor the Left Hand Path is welcome here, why have we found this place?”
“Because we are peaceable. If we carried on our fight here, the guardian would not permit us to remain.” She sighed. “It is sad that the guardian will not take sides, for we need an anchor in the daily world before we can establish a sanctuary in that other place. But the guardian will not do this, not for us or for anyone.”
“But can we stay here?” Arkady dreaded the thought of going on before they had regained some portion of their strength.
“We will be permitted to do that, and the guardian will protect us as long as we do not bring our battle here. We may travel in that other place and the guardian will not interfere, but we are not to bring our fight to his spring.”
“Right,” he said wearily, closing his eyes.
They spent one more day and night there by the cave and its spring. In that time, some of their energy was restored, and their bodies no longer ached from privation. The gelding grew restless and his coat glistened in the sunlight. Arkady combed and braided his mane, having nothing better to do. He was delaying the hour of leaving, and he admitted it, if only to himself.
“We’ll have to travel soon, Arkady-immai.” Surata told him later that day. “The guardian will not permit us to remain once we are strong enough to fend for ourselves.”
“We are a long way from any merchants’ route,” Arkady said pensively. “You said that you can see no farther than I can, and all that is around us here is empty, dry land. We don’t know where we are, so it will be difficult to find where we are going.”
“There is a way,” she said with more enthusiasm than she had shown before. “We can return to the traders’ road.”
“Possibly,” he said. “We can’t be very far from the Oxus, and if we take care, we can reach it, then—”
“But Arkady-immai,” she cut in, “you may be limited and I may share your limitation, but the guardian is not like us. The guardian knows where the spring is and sees distances not as we would in that other place, but as we do in the daily world. Through the guardian, I do know where we are, for the guardian has shown me, with his wider vision.”
“Surata…you don’t need to say these things. I am content to go. We’ll find our way.” He looked down at her, admiring her and yet exasperated with her for persisting in her story of the guardian. He was willing to believe that she had somehow found the well for them and wanted to press on to Samarkand, but her invention of a guardian spirit that would let them rest but was doggedly neutral as a cloistered monk was more than he would accept.
“Arkady-immai, we are to the east of Khiva. We passed the city while we were in the grip of hung
er and thirst. There is a river—the Amu is what the guardian calls it—not more than a day ahead of us. We must continue east and then bear slightly to the south. Samarkand is at the base of the mountains. The caravan route is more to the south than we are, and passes through Bukhara before reaching Samarkand. The guardian tells me that we can take three or four days off our travel by going directly to Samarkand. It will also give the Bundhi fewer opportunities to spy on us. Undoubtedly he has sent agents to both places.”
Arkady stared down at his large, blunt hands, looking at the scars on his knuckles. He listened to Surata as he flexed his fingers, wanting to trust what she told him but unwilling to do so. “Surata,” he said when she had finished, “you’ve got too pardon me if I am suspicious of what you…Look, Surata, I know you’re convinced that you’ve found something that helps you, but I…” He thought a moment, then tried again. “I’m not convinced that there really is a guardian, or that it can tell you anything, but I’m willing to give it a try, for your sake. After all, the fig tree was there.”
“You want me to know that you’re not accepting the guardian, is that it?” she asked him when he was through.
“That’s more or less it,” he confirmed. “The river may be there and it may not. You want us to find something, don’t you? So do I.”
“And you’re trying to prepare me for disappointment,” she added with great candor. “That is dear of you, Arkady-immai, but it isn’t necessary. The river is there, and the way to Samarkand is clear. We will pass two empty cities and a tower filled with bones, and those will be signs to us that we are in the right.”
Arkady thought carefully as he listened to her. He wanted to trust what she was telling him, and all her past skills argued that he could, but this was different. What they did now would determine if they would live long enough to confront the Bundhi, or sleep in a bed instead of a roll of blankets. He patted her hand. “Surata, if we don’t reach that river, what then?”
“We will,” she said tranquilly.
They reached the river late in the afternoon of the following day. Arkady drew up his gelding and stared as if he were seeing a mirage. Surata, riding behind him, tightened her arms.
“What is it, Arkady-champion?”
In a voice he thought must belong to a stranger, he said, “It’s the river.”
Surata gave him a playful jab in the ribs. “There, you see?”
Three nights after that, after they had eaten and night enveloped them, when their campfire had burned down to a glowing molehill, Surata said softly, “I have missed our union, Arkady-immai.”
“So have I,” he said, then amended this. “…When I wasn’t so frightened or so weak that all I could think about was the danger we were in.”
“There is always danger,” she said in an abstracted way. “To breathe is dangerous. To wake in the morning is dangerous. There is no reason to spend all your days thinking of the danger.”
“I’m a soldier, Surata,” he reminded her. “I’ve lived this long by recognizing danger in time.” He took one of the blanket rolls and braced it behind him, so that he could rest his elbows on it and look up at the stars. “You watch after us in that other place; it’s my responsibility to look after us here.”
“That’s true, I suppose.” She felt around her for his hand, and when she did not find it, she stretched out her arms until she touched him. “Still, it would be pleasant to be in that other place. It would be pleasant to awaken the Subtle Body.”
“Is that the only reason you do it, to reach the Subtle Body and get access to that other place?” The question bothered him, had been nagging at him since Sarai, but he had not had the courage to speak of it.
Her face turned to the sound of his voice. “No. That is not the only reason.”
The relief that came over him was far greater than he had expected. He did not realize he had been holding his breath, but now he let it out explosively and made a grab for her, pulling her down across his chest and laughing joyously. “Thank God for that,” he said before he kissed her. As she began to rouse him, he knew he would never grow weary of her, never regret being with her, never doubt that buying her was the wisest thing he had ever done. He met her kisses with his own and tentatively explored the places on her body where she said that the Centers lay.
She got him out of his clothes and was soon naked herself. “Arkady-champion,” she crooned as her tongue circled the center of his chest.
He took her face in his hands. “No, Surata. This time let me try, for you.”
She made a sound that was not quite a laugh. “You know nothing,” she protested happily.
“Then teach me, Surata,” he murmured as his lips grazed hers. “Teach me.”
“I have studied a lifetime,” she breathed, her head flung back as he circled her breast with his hand.
“Good.” There was a hint of a sensation in his fingers, like an inner tingling. “It will take me a long time to learn.” Was it possible that she had been telling him the truth, he marvelled as he ran his hand down the Centers. Was there really a force that was triggered by this contact?
“The lips first, Arkady-champion,” she whispered unevenly. “Then the throat, then the heart.” She stopped as her whole body trembled with the movement of his mouth on her salty, sweet flesh.
It was the most exquisite delight to waken her passion. There was no part of her—not a toe, not an eyebrow, not a Center of her Subtle Body—that he could touch without bringing sighs of pleasure to her lips. He knew he was clumsy, that he had learned only the few things she had shown him, yet he had no doubt that her rapture was genuine. How much better it would become when he had been instructed in all the nuances and exercises she already knew. His own body thrummed with excitement and expectation.
“Do not wait…too long, Arkady-champion,” she urged him a short time later. “It will be over too…soon.” The last word was hardly more than a flutter in her throat. Her hands moved over his body ardently.
He could not speak, so consumed was he with apolaustic need. As he drew her close, onto him, around him they soared through vast expanses of many-hued light, around vistas and spires of light, along avenues and under seas of light. He no longer felt separate from her; his unity with her was as intense—more intense—in this other place than in the daily world. He thought it possible that they might fuse, be one being, made of the same light as the spaces around them.
“Arkady my champion,” she said with the sound in his mind, “it can be possible.”
He could sense a little of the knowledge she had in her as part of his own memories, but so remote and hazy that he could not discern any specific part of it. Wavering images, phrases, events flickered at the edge of his thoughts, but they escaped quick as fish when he tried to hold them. “You…” He had no way to express his frustration to her.
Surata understood. “It will come in time, Arkady my champion. It will be clear to you.”
“Does this happen to you about me?” He did not actually speak aloud, but his words were distinct and separate from her words, and that reassured him.
“Not as much,” she confessed. “I know your confusion; I have experienced it, when I was younger.”
“Then you have done this with others?” His jealousy was foolish and unnecessary but he felt it as keenly as a knife in the back.
“This? No. Not this.” She soothed him, rocking him gently as if he were her child and not her lover. “There are other means, but this is what I was being trained for, this unity.”
He was mollified by her confession. “We are united, aren’t we? Completely?”
She hesitated. “Not completely. There would not be you and I, there would be the Divine Child, which would be both of us in a new being. It would be yin and yang at once, male and female, light and dark. Then we would be one.” She felt his hesitancy and faint revulsion. “There is nothing wrong in such a being. It is the greatest achievement of any Adept, any alchemist. It is the end of aliena
tion.”
“The end of being myself,” he objected, fear cold within him. “Would I ever be myself again, after that?”
“You would be all yourself, Arkady my champion. You would be all the things that you truly are, in the daily world. Here we would be the Divine Child, if you wished it.” Her voice ached with longing for it, and he could feel it distantly. “When one has learned to transcend, to ride the crest of the wave, that is just the beginning, not the end of it. A student soon learns to transcend alone, roaming this other place and shaping it according to whim or desire. That is not what you and I do, and we do not do what the Divine Child can do.”
“So that’s what you were after,” Arkady grumbled with resentment growing in him. “We’re an excuse to…advance your studies.”
Her chuckle was heartrending in its sadness. “Arkady my champion, you must know better than that by now. If that were all I wished of you—”
Her pain was a hurt within him, and he cringed at it and what he had done. “I didn’t mean that, Surata. Not the way it sounded.”
“You did mean it,” she corrected him softly, “but that isn’t important. The fear that you have is important.”
Arkady was almost overcome with shame. He had intended to hurt her, and he had, but he had not anticipated her compassion, and her care. They hovered together, their shifting environment less brilliant than it had been an instant ago. “I…” he began contritely. “Surata, what can I—”
“You need say nothing, Arkady my champion. I know what you feel, as you know my emotions.” Her voice was serene, accepting. “Your turmoil is needless, believe me.”
He tried to let her gentleness replace his hostility and was abashed to find he could not. “I don’t…”
“It will take time, Arkady my champion. Do not be troubled that you are not ready to learn so much. Most of the world cannot bear to know the smallest part of what you’ve already done.” Her tone was calm without being dispassionate, encouraging him while she excused his reluctance.
To the High Redoubt Page 29
