The Initiate Brother Duology (145 page)

Brother Hitara was also fasting, so they stopped only occasionally to drink. The late-spring sun beat down, but the air remained cool and there was always a breeze from the sea, making their relentless pace bearable. Toward the end of the second day Shuyun realized that only his Botahist-trained memory would allow him to retrace their route, so twisted was it, so devoid of distinguishing marks.

Working down a scree slope late in the day, Brother Hitara began to search along the face of a cliff. After some searching he located a break in the rock that could not be seen from even a few feet away. Through this they came upon a ledge wide enough for two to walk abreast. It wound up around the side of the cliff, its slope gradual, disappearing into a white cloud that clung to the mountain side. The stone here appeared to have seen so many generations of men pass along it that it was worn completely smooth.

Hitara stood gazing along the pathway with a look of satisfaction as though reassured somehow that it was still here or that he had been able to find it. “You must not wear your sandals here, Brother Shuyun—for you this is the beginning of the Way. Give a prayer of thanks each time your sole touches the stone, for few have walked this path.”

“Brother Hitara,” Shuyun said. “My gratitude cannot be expressed.”

Hitara looked at him oddly then, almost quizzically. “Brother Shuyun, certainly the honor is mine. I have taken some small part in the completion of a prophesy. With each breath I thank Botahara for this. Few can say as much.” He raised his hands to encompass the whole world. “What more can I ask of this life?”

He knelt down and kissed the smooth stone that began the path, then rose and bowed to Shuyun. “We shall meet again, Brother Shuyun. May the Teacher bless you.”

“I must thank you for delivering His message, though I confess it took some months before I realized.

“It grows dark, Brother, will you not make camp with me until morning?” Suddenly Shuyun felt it odd to be abandoned. The path he had sought for so long seemed more daunting than he had imagined.

Hitara waved up the slope. “The moon will light my way, Brother Shuyun, for I have many tasks to perform. I would suggest you wait until daylight before you proceed, however. The Way is narrow.” Bowing again, Hitara began to make his way lightly up the loose rock.

Finding a flat stone, Shuyun sat and began to meditate. Later, in the moonlight, he chanted, his voice echoing among the mountains as though he were a hundred men.

At the first hint of light he rose and removed his sandals. Like Hitara, he knelt and kissed the stone before placing a foot upon it. If there had been water, he would have bathed his feet.

The pathway led up the shoulder of the mountain until it entered a draw
between that mountain and the next. Shuyun passed over the ridge that lay here, glad to find a stream of cool water. The path then followed the narrow ridge, the stone sloping off on both sides into green valleys far below. To his right Shuyun could see a small lake the color of turquoise.

At the end of the day the monk found a tiny rivulet of water that wound down the steep mountainside. A rough stone shrine stood here and Shuyun spent the night as he had before, in prayer.

He set out again at dawn and followed the narrow path as it wound its way deeper into the ancient mountains. Here and there a twisted pine sprang up impossibly from the desert of stone, and now and then he found a pond of clear water. Nowhere did he see signs that others had passed this way, no remains of fires or camps, yet the pathway remained as obvious and clear as a road in the capital. Who has passed this way? Shuyun asked himself. How could there have been so many?

On the third day, the sixth of his fast, he came into a hanging valley suspended between three mountains, and here there was enough accumulation of soil that both grass and trees grew—tall narrow firs of a type Shuyun had never seen. Rounding a massive boulder Shuyun surprised a Botahist Sister. Immediately she recovered. She smiled and bowed, making signs of welcome, but she said nothing. In a basket she gathered the cones of the pine trees and some small plant that Shuyun did not know. Obviously, she had taken a vow of silence, so the monk smiled and passed her by, following the pathway.

This valley is my destination, he realized, the awareness surfacing in him as though it was knowledge he had always possessed. The Teacher is here.

He skirted the shore of a tiny lake, and walked through a stand of trees. Here, without warning he came upon a small, roughly built house surrounded by a fence of unplaned boards.

Two Brothers knelt at the gate and they bowed low when Shuyun came into view, showing less surprise at the arrival of a stranger than had the foraging Sister. One rose immediately and slipped through the gate.

The Order’s missing Brothers,
Shuyun said to himself. Brother Hitara is one of these. The great mystery to the Botahist Brotherhood. They came to serve the Teacher. But how did they know? How did they find Him? Had they received messages like the one Shuyun had received from Hitara? Knowing where the Brothers had come did not solve the mystery.

Realizing the remaining monk did not intend to speak, Shuyun turned
and gazed out over the lake, breathing in the scents of the valley that drifted on the cool breeze. It was a fine perfume.

I have found Him,
Shuyun thought, feeling his spirit lift as though it took wing on the breeze. We have waited a thousand years….

“Brother Shuyun.” It was a woman’s voice.

The monk turned to find a Sister regarding him with obvious interest. She was older, though nowhere near as old as the Prioress, and her bearing was that of a woman Shuyun’s age.

“May you be welcome in our home,” she said in a voice as youthful as her movement. “It is a place of great peace.”

“I feel that I have arrived, Sister, but I do not know where.”

When the woman smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes made them appear delightfully mischievous and Shuyun could not help but smile at this contrast.

“This valley, this lake, they have no names.” She waved up the slope behind the house. “Nor is this mountain named. It is the home of the Teacher, kept ready for hundreds of years. And now he has come. Please, Brother, walk with me.”

Shuyun followed her into a garden, stretching his time sense as he stepped through the gate to make the moment last. A gravel path led to the porch of the house but the nun did not go there. She took a second path, that wound among trees Shuyun could not name, and came to a second gate. She opened this gently, peering inside, then held it wide for her guest.

“He awaits you, Brother.”

Shuyun was suddenly light-headed and he forced control over himself with great discipline. When he passed through the gate, the nun did something he did not expect—she reached out and touched him. It was not a gesture of affection or reassurance, she simply wanted to touch him.
I am the bearer of the Word,
Shuyun thought. I am part of a prophesy.

Stepping through the gate, Shuyun swept the garden with his gaze but saw no one. He stood for a moment, offering up a prayer, and then he began to walk along the path, his bare feet alive in every nerve as though the holiness of the earth flowed like chi.

The garden was small, large stones set among trees and unusual shrubs. The elevation no doubt imposed limits on what could be grown, giving the garden a sense of sparseness. All the same, this was a garden of great artistry and Shuyun drank in every detail.

Rounding a boulder, he found a man sitting on a cushion on a low, flat stone that formed a natural dais. Before this was an area of raked gravel. Shuyun stopped suddenly, unable to proceed.

The Teacher bent over a scroll. He dressed in the manner of Shuyun’s own Order including a pendant and purple sash. He was not as old as many monks Shuyun had known and this was a surprise, though it should not have been. The Teacher appeared to have seen perhaps seventy-five years in this lifetime, though Shuyun was sure that was at least ten short of the truth. He was of average size with little about him, physically, to mark him. Perhaps his eyes were wider apart than most and his cheekbones higher, making his face appear less round than common among the people of Wa.

The Teacher looked up and smiled at Shuyun, a smile like the Prioress Saeja’s—full of compassion, though touched by humor and the perspective of great age—many lifetimes in this case.

“Welcome,” the Teacher said, his voice melodic. In that single word Shuyun was certain he heard an echo of both Lord Shonto and Lady Nishima.

Gesturing as he began to roll the scroll, the Teacher invited Shuyun to come forward.

Unsure of what was expected, Shuyun chose to walk, though he knelt and bowed three paces from the rock dais.

For several minutes the Teacher did not take his eyes off the young monk before him and his expression of great pleasure did not change. Somehow Shuyun felt like a favored son returning after a long absence.

“Brother Shuyun, it is with great joy that we welcome you into our home.”

“The honor is mine entirely…Brother Satake.”

The older man’s face lit up in a great smile. “Motoru-sum would never have told you.”

“He did not, Brother.”

The Teacher laughed. “You will be most welcome. I only regret that I will stay but a short time.”

Not quite sure what was meant by this, Shuyun searched for something to say. “I bring you a gift, Brother Satake,” Shuyun said. He felt his spirit calming as though he were in the presence of someone he had known a very long time.

“It is most kind, Brother Shuyun, though I have need of nothing.”

“It is a poem, Brother.”

“Ah! A poem is always welcome.”

Reaching into his sleeve, Shuyun found the mulberry paper. He leaned forward to place it on the dais, but Satake reached out and took it from his hand. Slowly the Teacher unfolded it and read, the look on his face made Shuyun believe that never had the Teacher received anything that delighted him more. He finished reading, and then he laughed his laugh of great joy.

“Nishi-sum, Nishi-sum,” he said, as though the Empress were there in the garden with them. Brother Satake looked up. “This gift brings me great joy, Brother Shuyun. I thank you. She is well?”

Shuyun nodded.

“How I miss her at times,” the Teacher said with feeling.

Shuyun nodded. “I fear I shall say the same.”

The Teacher regarded him again, unembarrassed, it seemed, to do this. “It has been many centuries since a follower of the Eightfold Path walked the roads of Wa, Brother Shuyun.”

Shuyun broke away from the man’s gaze with some effort. “I am not sure what the Eightfold Path is, Brother Satake, but I have wandered far from the path taught by my Order.”

The Teacher’s face became grave. “You rode to war beside my former charge, Motoru-sum; were stripped of your pendant and ejected from your Order; met the barbarian threat; and took an Empress as your lover—all in the few months since you left Jinjoh Monastery?”

Shuyun did not know what to answer. Though the charges were most serious, the Teacher’s tone seemed to lighten with each word.

Satake laughed suddenly. “I spent decades accomplishing less, Brother.” He smiled his beautiful smile. “Perhaps only Botahara has lived more fully before finding His true purpose.” The Teacher laughed again. “Nishi-sum, Nishi-sum,” he said as though he chastised a favored child, “my own bearer.”

Brother Satake regarded Shuyun again and the humor in the man’s eyes seemed to shine through. “Here we have labored on other pursuits, Brother.” He gestured to the scroll he had been reading. “We true-copy Botahara’s great work.”

Shuyun looked up, certain he had let his surprise show. “How, Brother?”

He was not sure this question did not bring a glint of pleasure to the old man’s eyes. “There are Faithful even among the Botahist Brothers, Shuyun-sum. Even among the hypocrites and liars. The scrolls have been in the possession of the Faithful for some years.

“So we have labored. It is a task more difficult than one would think, for
the language has changed and grown—but my special knowledge of the past has allowed us to come near to the end of this. The Word of Botahara as it must be known.” He smiled at Brother Shuyun. “And the word of Satake as I have written it.” He hefted the scroll he had been reading as if demonstrating its weight. “The word you will bear. Your way will be hard, Brother, never doubt it.”

Shuyun stared openly at the scroll in Satake held.
The hand of Botahara, so close I could reach out and touch it.

Suddenly his face became serious. “You have not yet stopped the sand, Brother Shuyun.”

“I have not, Brother Satake,” Shuyun admitted. “I confess that I am afraid.”

The Teacher nodded, understanding in his eyes. “As was I, Brother Shuyun.” He set the scroll down gently and wrapped it in brocade. “Tell me what it is you have learned from your teachers, the Shonto.”

Yes, Shuyun thought, it is as I believed. Nishima was my teacher as was her father. “I have learned much, Brother Satake…and perhaps I have learned nothing. I do not know.”

The Teacher did not answer but gave his full attention to the young monk, waiting.

Shuyun stared down at the gravel for a moment as though studying the patterns there, looking for order among the randomness of the world. “It is the Illusion, Brother Satake: what I was taught did not ring of truth. The world, it is not illusion, it is a plane on which our spirits take form. I was taught that believing in the Illusion would lead to great sorrow, and that joy and pleasure were not real—things meant only to trap us in an endless cycle of rebirth into the world of Illusion.” He looked up suddenly. “But I now believe this was wrong. Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach, just as a Neophyte Brother must learn the Form. The Illusion exists in the minds of those who do not truly believe they can progress beyond that plane onto another, who do not know that there is a lesson to be learned. To progress beyond the world one must give it up, finally. It will not disappear the day this is done—one must still come to completion before one leaves it behind. The world will exist for all the souls to come. But one must break free of the Illusion, perceive the path to the next plane. I say this though I have not done so, Brother Satake.”