“Until the Udumbara blossoms.” Hitara bowed again. “Brother Shuyun. Lord of Seh.” He wheeled his horse and disappeared among the giant rocks of the ancient river bed.
Thirty-five
AS A PILGRIM and Seeker, Brother Sotura could afford only deck passage. As a Master of the Botahist Faith and chi quan instructor of Jinjoh Monastery there were other things he could not afford in his present situation: he could not afford to wear any sign of the position he held within his church, nor could he afford to use his name.
The fall winds continued to blow in from the sea and the river barge on which he took passage lumbered along the Grand Canal as the great waterway made its patient way toward the northern provinces. Some few days ahead of Sotura’s own barge it was said that the Imperial Guard, led by General Jaku himself, was clearing the canal of pirates and those parasites who levied charges for safe conduct through sections of the waterway. There was a great deal of relief aboard the vessel, as far as Sotura could tell.
He sat leaning up against the side of a raised cargo hatch and watched the shore pass in the light mist and starlight. Although he was, according to the position he had attained in the Order, beyond the reach of earthly things such as beauty, Sotura found the Empire of Wa to be irresistible—even more so as he grew older. He was not sure why, but there seemed to be little he could do about it. At one point he even found himself sighing as they passed calypta trees with the stars caught in the net of their branches. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to focus on other things.
The disappearing Brothers, for instance. Except for the missing scrolls, there had been no greater mystery in the long annals of the Botahist Faith. Sotura wondered again what, if anything, the connection might be and, as always, he could think of none.
He traveled now toward Seh because his Order felt that there was a focus there—events were about to occur that could shake the entire Empire. And somehow at the center of all this was a young monk and former student of the chi quan instructor—Brother Shuyun. Sotura pressed his fingers to his eyes as though he was in pain, but it was merely a reaction to his own confusion.
The confusion was caused by this news from Brother Hutto…. The Udumbara had blossomed! It was not true, how could it be? Sotura had once journeyed to Monarta and visited the grove where Botahara had attained Enlightenment. It was an experience he would never forget. And he found that place, too, unimaginably beautiful. The Perfect Master had said the Udumbara would blossom again to herald the coming of a Teacher.
But the trees had not blossomed in a thousand years, though they lived on, almost unchanged, through the rise and fall of dynasties and through the wars and famines of the centuries. How could there be a new Perfect Master and the Brotherhood not know? He could not believe it: it was simply not possible.
He opened his eyes as the barge passed the mouth of a small stream crossed by the arc of a stone bridge built in the northern style. Starlight reflected in the water and mist clung to the shore softening all the lines, blending them into the flowing river.
All streams lead to the river, Sotura thought, and sighed without knowing it.
Thirty-six
THEY RODE AFTER dark that evening, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the spring as they could. They made their way east for several hours and then mixed their tracks with those on another trail. They rode over shelves of rock and doubled back down their own track. Always they set course by the constellation of the Two Sisters.
They passed more and more places where the dry grasses and scrub were broken by expanses of sand spreading like ulcers across the skin of the high steppe. Neither of them spoke of this, but it was apparent that the wandering tribes were losing their world to the encroaching desert and both Komawara and Shuyun knew what this meant for the province of Seh.
While it was still dark, they found shelter beneath a cliff and when morning came awoke to a view of the vast northern wastes. No grass—no sign of anything living. A few solitary rock sentinels thrust up from the growing dunes and in the near distance the sand gave way to a warren of eroded cliffs and toppled sentinels, all faded grays and reds that only a desert could produce.
The pack pony had gone lame in the night and Komawara cursed as no Botahist monk had ever done. He came and threw himself down on his saddle and Shuyun handed him a roll of flatbread filled with bean curd, vegetables cured to last, and cold rice. There was a sauce of delicate flavor over this that Komawara could not name. In light of his earlier reaction to such fare, he was not about to admit that he was developing a taste for the monk’s food. Left to his own, Shuyun would not have bothered with even the time it took to prepare a meal such as this, but he made a concession for Komawara’s sake. Obviously, the young lord had never produced a meal in his life.
“The gray is somewhat lame. It will be more than a day before she can bear weight again.”
Shuyun shrugged. “We can carry more on our own mounts. We could even do with less.”
“That is true, Brother, but we will not travel as quickly.”
“Then we will travel slowly, it cannot be helped.”
“Are you never impatient, Brother, do you…” Komawara caught himself.
“If impatience would help, Lord Komawara, I would become impatient.”
“Excuse me, Shuyun-sum, I let my concern govern me.”
“There is no need to apologize. We share a difficult venture, Lord Komawara.” He smiled. “I will try to be a little impatient in the future.”
The day was spent in camp. Shuyun meditated and neither ate nor drank. Komawara slept as he could and, when awake, paced. He tried all his skill with the lame mare and toward nightfall felt she could go some distance, providing she bore nothing. The other horses carried more of the burden and it slowed them noticeably.
In the night the wind carried voices to them, though Shuyun was more sure than Komawara that it was not the wind through the rock speaking in its own strange tongue. They hid themselves and were silent but were soon convinced the wind that brought the voices to them masked the sounds of their own passage.
They went on, more carefully now, and near sunrise they found a place to make camp that offered protection from the wind and afforded escape from more than one direction.
Komawara slept while Shuyun kept the first watch. The young monk had no strong desire to sleep: his dreams troubled him with questions he could not answer and feelings he did not recognize. Often he returned to his meeting with the young nun on the canal and the information he gained from her, information so momentous that he had trouble focusing his mind on its implications.
He realized also that he dreamed often of Lady Nishima and somehow the image of the Faceless Lovers carved into the wall of the gorge became confused with the images of his liege-lord’s daughter. Often it was the face of Nishima he saw on the cliff, but the man she held close to her continually altered and changed. Sometimes her lover was unclear, as though viewed through water, and then Shuyun knew that it was he the lady embraced.
The monk was ashamed of the weakness of will that this indicated, but he also felt a quiet defiance which he did not recognize—the Botahist Initiate had begun to entertain the thought that he could have been lied to by his own Order and this thought began an erosion in his spirit much like the desert had begun in the high steppe.
They ate quickly and began to travel before sunset. The long ride of the previous night had done nothing to improve the condition of the gray, but the rest during the day had brought her back so that she could go on, though her pace was even slower.
“Does he not have a superior?” Komawara asked. They spoke of the monk they had met at the spring.
“All members of our Order have a superior, with the exception of the Supreme Master. I will enquire after Brother Hitara when we return. No brother could be here without permission of the Prefect of Seh, I’m certain.”
Shuyun reined in his horse suddenly. “There is something on the wind.”
Shuyun turned his head from side to side, his eyes closed. “Men. Ahead of us.”
They turned their horses immediately, and as they did so three barbarians slid down the steep walls of the gully in a cloud of dust and rocks. They had swords drawn but did not attack, as though it was sufficient to block the monks’ line of retreat. Komawara wheeled his horse and found three others had appeared in that direction.
The men yelled to each other across the distance and began to advance slowly.
Komawara cursed his luck for not bringing a sword and pulled the staff from his saddle, letting the lead to the pack animal go.
“They are brigands,” Shuyun said. “They intend to murder us for whatever we have. They do not imagine that we would know their language. These we face will rush us to allow those behind to cut us down.” Saying so, he dismounted his horse.
Komawara started to protest and then remembered Shuyun in the fane and knew he had not been trained to fight from horseback. The young lord dismounted also.
“They are about to come, Brother,” Shuyun said, and his voice sounded thick and far off. “When they do, drive our horses at those behind. That will provide the time we need to deal with these three.”
A shout went up from the barbarians as they charged. It was easy for Komawara to turn the horses, who panicked at the charge. The lord turned in time to see Shuyun take stance before the first attacker. The barbarian risked little and aimed a long, downward cut at his opponent, intending to take him at the join of neck and shoulder. Shuyun’s hand was a blur as it went up and matched the arc of the sword and then parried so that the blade passed harmlessly to one side. Even as he did so, he reached forward and took the brigand by his hair, pulling him forward, face first, into his driving knee. The man fell beside Shuyun who spun, and all in one endless motion, threw the man’s sword, hilt first, to Komawara.
Although he jumped to the monk’s assistance, the northerner was not quick enough. The next two attackers went down as quickly as the first, their joint attack turned against them and their sword strokes redirected so that they staggered to avoid disemboweling each other.
Komawara spun into guard position as the three robbers, who had been dodging fleeing horses, came out of the dust. The lord found himself blinking madly as the dust blew down on him, but his attackers seemed to be suffering at least as badly.
This time, one was not quicker or braver than the others and the three fell on the young lord together. This was not a haphazard attack, but a coordinated effort to bring him down. If it wasn’t for the fact that they did not risk themselves, they might have taken him in their first rush. Fortunately the young lord had not gained his reputation as a swordsman without reason. He drew back and had them believing he was desperately retreating until one overreached, blocking another—this man fell to a lightning thrust of Komawara’s point. And then the young lord returned to his retreat, pursued by two more careful opponents.
The larger of the two disengaged suddenly and his remaining companion fell to Komawara as he looked aside for a instant to see where his fellow went. The lord spun, prepared to give chase to a running man, but realized the other had turned aside, not out of cowardice, but to engage Shuyun.
Again the lord watched as the small monk deflected a sword stroke with his bare hand. This time Shuyun grabbed the blade in his hand and held it as though it bore no edge. Thrusting out with the flat of his free hand, he propelled the barbarian away from him with a force that Komawara did not believe possible. The brigand, who was larger than Shuyun by half, hit a rock and lay unmoving in the settling dust.
Surveying the field of battle and convinced that all opponents were, at least temporarily, not a threat, Komawara crossed to the monk and took the sword from his hand. And then forgetting his manners entirely, the lord lifted Shuyun’s hand and examined it closely.
“How is it that you are unmarked?”
Shuyun did not answer immediately, and Komawara was surprised by the look in the monk’s eyes. He achieves a meditative state in battle, the lord thought.
When Shuyun spoke, it appeared that he did so with difficulty. “You cannot let the edge press against the skin: I was scratched many times learning this. The hand must first match the speed and motion of the sword, but once the blade is grasped firmly along its sides it can be directed as you wish. It is a skill simple in principle, Brother.”
Komawara stood stunned for a moment by the monk’s words. It is a journey on which one constantly sees the impossible, he thought, and found himself looking at the monk’s hands again as though he would discover the trick.
One of the tribesmen Shuyun had felled rolled over and moaned.
Komawara went to him immediately and bound the man with his own sash. The lord found that he was trembling with anger as he tied the man and it took all of his effort not to attack the helpless man. They raid my country, Komawara found himself thinking, they have killed people close to me, members of my family, they will never leave us in peace. He wrenched the knot tight and then glanced up and found Shuyun staring at him and mastered his anger.
A dagger, a skinning knife, and a pouch were found in the man’s tunic. He bore no other possessions.
“We had best bind them all though I do not know what we shall do with them, Brother.”
Shuyun went to the two men Komawara had dispatched and found them both dead and he wondered at the hatred he had just witnessed in the young lord. A brief entreaty for the tribesmen’s souls and a prayer of forgiveness were all time would allow.
The first of the men Komawara had bound was conscious now, and looking from monk to lord with deep fear. Though the man’s face was dark and lined from the sun, Shuyun realized that he was not old. A youth, the monk thought, no older than his two captors, perhaps younger.
“Look at this, Shuyun-sum,” Komawara said and held out his hand. In the pouch the man carried, the lord had found gold coins identical to those that had been carried by the barbarian raiders in Seh—square, finely minted with the round hole in the center.
“They do not rob out of need, Brother,” Komawara said, and there was disdain in his voice.
Shuyun nodded. “Their dialect is of the Haja-mal, the hunters of the western steppe. I do not know why, but they are far from their own lands.”
“These are not the swords of hunters, Shuyun-sum. Nor do I see the spears or bows I would expect.” He hefted the skinning knife. “Only this. I wonder what it is they hunt.”
Shuyun turned to the tribesman and spoke to him gently in his own language. “Why do you attack us, tribesman?” the monk asked, “we meant you no harm.”
The barbarian did not speak, but looked from one to the other until Komawara moved his sword to a position where it could be put to quick use. The man stared up at the lord’s face and began to speak, though quietly, with neither anger nor resentment in his tone.
“He says that they follow the Gensi, their leader—one of the men who fell to your sword. The Gensi wished to attack us though they argued against this.”
“Why?”
The monk repeated the question and listened patiently.
“He says he does not know, but it is clear that he does not tell the truth.”
“What is his word for ‘lie’?” Komawara asked.
“Malati.”
The lord flicked the point of the barbarian sword against the tribesman’s neck and repeated the word.
Again the man spoke, though this time his tone changed and he spoke quickly.
“He says the Gensi wanted our ‘Botara denu’—I am not sure: perhaps ‘gem of strength’ is an approximation.” Shuyun reached inside his robe and withdrew the jade pendant on its chain and showed it to the barbarian. The man’s eyes went wide and he nodded as much as the sword pressed to his throat would allow. “He says they argued that this endeavor would bring them…bad luck
is a poor translation, but there is no other.
“What would the Gensi do with this stone?” Shuyun asked and listened as the man spoke again.
“Make favor with the Khan, who desires the power of the gem,” Shuyun translated. “These men are members of a tribe that does not support the Khan and he claims they hoped to be given gold for bringing the Khan the Botara denu. This seems to be a half-truth, lord.”
Komawara lowered his sword. “Let him lie to us, Shuyun-sum. Lies will tell us the truth more quickly than he can be convinced of the value of honesty. Ask him where the coins came from.”
Shuyun spoke again and the man answered readily. “He says the gold came from trade with the Khan’s men for ponies, though this is another lie.” Again Shuyun questioned him. “He says that he has never raided into Seh, and for once this appears to be a truth.”
Without being questioned, the tribesman spoke again, and Komawara saw the man was uneasy.
“What does he say, Brother?”
“The raiders are also given gold; this is a reward for bravery and also to compensate them for taking no women, which the Khan has forbidden.”
“How strange!”
“He assures us that the gold he carries was for honest trade and he bears no…grudge against the men of Seh.”
Komawara snorted, causing the barbarian to flinch. His eye now flicked back and forth between Shuyun and the lord’s sword blade.
“So. Where did he get the gold if not from this Khan?”
“I believe he is a brigand, Lord Komawara. From some luckless member of a rival tribe.”
“Would you ask him who this Khan is and where he gets his gold?”
Shuyun spoke again and both men watched the transformation of the man as he spoke: the tone of his voice spoke of awe. “He believes the Khan is the son of a desert god and says that he is stronger than twenty men. He squeezes rocks with his hands to make gold for the worthy. The mighty fear him, even the Emperor of Wa pays him tribute and has offered him his daughters as wives. The Khan revealed the holy place where the bones of the dragon were buried. He calls this place ‘Ama-Haji’—the Soul of the Desert. No one can stand against the Khan: all men are his servants, all woman his concubines.”
The Initiate Brother Duology Page 45
