Curse

OlMurraniKasale · Jul 07, 2006, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Ol Murrani Kasale weeped for her pupil, who now approached from the eastern dunes.

“Hello Teacher,” he said as he removed his boots and entered the house. She did not reply nor did he expect her to. “I have the fish. I will bake it now.”

The sun sat just at the horizon, which this far west was merely an illusion. Suun, the Oracle of the Mists, said the world wobbled radically on axis, and the sun had long since set – the atmosphere reflected the image of the star all along the curvature and would do so for another hour. She waited as the sun waited, standing as still as she had before his arrival and as he cooked their meal.

To assume that Shing Jea was entirely devoted to the quiet monastic life would be to also correctly acknowledge the extreme basis of humanity; the monastery’s buildings did not cover the whole island, but the monastery’s teachings did cover all the subjects of peoples’ lives. Truly, the wisest monks had said that the surrounding sea reflected all that the Five Gods had planned for humanity since the Beginning.

Her pupil did not yet understand how the sea and the sand were linked to humanity, how the analogy played with seemingly tenuous threads of themes and plots to bring about minimization of the war between the Luxons and the Kurzicks. Her pupil was a strong young assassin, and late the hour grew while she waited for him.

The small house sat inconsistent to the primordial landscape, a multi-layered, ambiguous residence. On the dune of the sea, more west than the vestigial Angchu Aerie of the Tengu, this was a place where millions of years ago ancient lava flowed into the sea. The series of high thin promontories formed from the lava stretched west into the water like the outspread fingers of a gigantic hand laid flat on the floor of the world. Now the fingers are covered with wind-blown sand and the back of the hand had been terraced where it sloped sharply up towards the mountain to provide shelter from the spray. Tall rock, sea stacks, refusing to be worn down too quickly, thrust from the sea along this shore giving the impression of a once gargantuan wall having been built here.

The Old Warrior's long, low house of Aspen wood and pressed paper sat poised on the edge of the second highest sea stack. Sliding full-height paper screens were open on all sides so the interior merged with the exterior according to the state of the weather and the mood of its one full-time inhabitant. With those paper screens open, from any angle, the house was completely transparent with the view of the wild promontories and the sea immediately revealed. It was here, in the center axis of the house that she stood, a tall black woman sometimes referred to by the students as The Old Warrior of the Hill. She was Guild Master of the Zaishen Order Guild, Budo, and tonight she had a hard lesson to teach.

Offering her a small plate of baked fish, her pupil stood behind her and to the left, waiting for her to recite the Faith of the Five Gods. She did not, so he spoke the words. She could feel his reverence for the message as he spoke, but he lacked the acknowledgement of faith itself.

“You are still in question.”

He choked back a piece of fish, nodded, spoke. He came around to face her, but that was by his own preference. Students were taught to speak to each other face-to-face, but she was blind – he would be looking into her eyes even though nothing would register there; the irises did not dilate nor did her eyes move.

Through the teachings of Zaishen, of the Warrior and the Ritualist and the Monk, her perception reached well beyond his. Her mind could create images to replace the input of her eyes, and she could literally see him standing in front of her, questioning, hoping for more recognition. Her mind could even move perceptually to his frame of view, and now she saw herself as if through his eyes. She could see her short black hair blowing around her face, and the three braided knots that represented her ties to close clan and kin.

She could feel his heart beating, and his dismay as she remained quiet. Perhaps today he might gain the correct understanding? “Pupil,” she began, to his astonishment. “You speak the Faith of the Five Gods but do not feel it. You work here with me day after day but do not see the work. Your mind is always out there somewhere, and since out there is of such importance to you, we will see what is to be seen.” She abruptly turned away to walk out of the house’s southern portal. She walked barefoot down the terraces, slim body and thin sheered dress buffeted by the wind.

“I am trying, sister. I just . . . I just fear for us.”

“Fear.”

“Yes, sister, I am afraid. If as you say the Gods’ intend us to finally experience Their most evolved plan, then the whole of the peoples of Cantha will suffer greatly.”

“Fear is the product of preconception.”

“And preconception, like supposition, is always false unless proved true in reality in continuous testing,” he said, speaking the words but feeling nothing of them.

“The Gods’ Great Work is all around you, under your feet, blowing in your face, sitting as fish in your stomach but you do not see.”

“The Divine and Golden Path is more than I could bear.”

“Then you will make a poor assassin.”

She walked along the terraces, slowly but assuredly ending up on the beach between the two largest sea-stack fingers. The sea rolled in as seven waves, then one larger wave that crashed with a sound as loud as the strongest typhoon. To their far right, the shrill cry of a single Oni cursing the sun’s long sleep raked the air as if steel grating steel.

“In the beginning the Five Gods put Their Great Work into motion.” She spoke with mindfulness of every word, of her breath, of each wave that broke near her. “To balance the world, Balthazar needed only the natural order of Grenth’s Work to keep the whole eternally stable.”

She could feel his irritation as she spoke this first, simplest lesson again; his mind was in the clouds rather than in his heart. He would need to learn the lesson of personal death today, but for now she continued speaking.

“Matter in motion has only one option – evolve. In that the Gods also planned, and Their Great Work provided for that evolution. As the people evolved, so did the complexity of being able to stabilize humanity’s presence within the larger framework of the world. Their plan could not withstand motion, so they created assassins, warriors and mystics to do Their bidding as the world changed. These were the ancestors of the world, and ancestors of the first Zaishen.”

He took up the lesson, obviously trying to show he could recite it after so many times hearing it. She let him speak, but did not compliment him on his effort. What good was telling the Great Story of the Divine Golden Path if nothing of its words meant anything?

“Our ancestors were both feared and honored by lesser men. Their legacy always ended in two opposing sides joining forces to commit war against them, leading to the near mass extinction of all sides. In that, the Gods had found the fundamental key to perpetually being able to balance the world. Thus were the Mists created, and so did our Empire come to blossom.”

She interrupted to emphasize the point. “You speak of larger issues, to groups. Speak only of yourself. That is all you can know. When you commit to war, you must have an opponent. To commit to battle, you must face your opposite. To commit to death, you or your opponent must be capable of dying. This is truly the way of Zaishen.”

He hesitated, then spoke. “The Zaishen, I have been taught, seek Balance and do not seek total war. From your teachings, I . . . do both sides need to die almost to the last?”

She stood now at the farthest tip of the finger, barefeet resting just at the wet edge of the sea. He stood behind her, but in her mind he stood as if within her, as if they were joined as one body and mind. For her, all people were one with her and her with them.

“Again you speak of others and not yourself. But since you stumble, here is my hand. To believe that any ratio other than one-to-one is valid is preconceived, and has proven false in reality since the first Zaishen. Wars are not committed by groups of people – they are engaged by each individual person. To walk the Divine Path is to know that your work could result in the deaths of every opponent you face. Is that more than you can bear?”

She could see him shaking his head, and he came around to face her again with his feet in the cold sea. He was missing her point, still stuck in the world scheme. “That just isn’t possible. No one person could cause all the warring parties to annihilate each other or join together as one.”

“So sure are you?” She waved her hand backwards toward the island. “A corruption fills Shing Jea turning men into beasts, diseased, angry. That is the work of a single person. The Mists are no longer in balance; the dead are not being ferried. Perhaps tomorrow will reveal more.” She stepped forward only two feet, all that was needed to drop him down into the sea. With her hands holding his throat and keeping his head under the saltwater, he struggled and beat at her -- soon lying still as the water filled his lungs. Her strength overcame his and he drowned. In moments, the pupil would resurrect at the monastery shrine, his first, a hard lesson indeed.

She let his body drift away on the sea, pulling all of her perception into herself. “You are wrong brother. A single person can engage in all out war or total peace. It takes only one person to begin such a task. Remember that when you return to me to continue your lessons.”

-------------

The young acolyte entered the house that sat at the top of the natural terraces, just above the sea on Shing Jea Island. All of the paper panels were open, the heavy sea breeze revealing in its nature even the acolyte’s basest desire – murder. He had never felt death, and had not yet organized his thoughts and emotions about having his first experience being resurrected at the shrine. He had nothing but hatred for his teacher – she had murdered him!

Only the breeze, his hatred and his knife guided him tonight, guided him to her, this strange sort of teacher.

She knew of his arrival when he crossed over the top of the bluff despite his efforts to remain unseen, despite his efforts to traipse along the terraced fingers of hardened lava. She laughed. How could one be unaware of their hand?

She waited for him in the central axis of the house built from Aspen tree and paper as she had earlier. His feet caused vibration in the floor, and his breathing echoed in her ears, out of tune and out of rhythm with the breeze. He had much yet to learn about being an assassin. She waited for him as he approached, eyes closed, seeing his movements as images in her mind that revealed his intentions. She waited until the blade arched backward before speaking.

“How tall is the wind, brother?”

The blade stopped, mid air, ready to plunge deep into her chest. He was originally from the mainland, born of an Am Fah family and raised in their ways. She could not blame him for taking the frontal approach. She was blind, so he could have tried to murder her from the back or the side, but he was stubbornly civil. Not a particular attribute to be focused if he intended to be assassin.

“What is the wind’s complexion?”

The blade dropped, and he stood before her with eyes half-closed. “As tall as my limited perception and as complex as my waking mind, Old Warrior.”

She smiled, and he stepped back. “Then you have learned something.”

“Teacher, as I traveled here from the . . . shrine, I encountered Tahbo Paa. He spoke of an incident in the UnderCity, your bold infiltration of the Am Fah to discover their true lords. Will you tell me of that?”

“Bold. Daring? Judgments of the misconceived. I will not talk of that.”

He nodded, but remembered she was blind, acknowledging in the next half second that she had better vision than anyone even if not with her eyes. “Then I await your instruction Old Warrior.”

“Then I will instruct you in the True Thought.”

“Thank you sister.”

She spoke to him of the Zaishen Order, of things spiritual and evolved, of higher beings, specifically of the Gods’ Divine and Golden Path, of Their innate efforts to balance the whole of the world that they had created. Her young pupil seemed more attentive than he had before his death, but that was neither good nor bad. She spoke to him of the unbalanced nature of the Empire in this current era, and of the earliest Zaishen and their efforts to survive after the wrecks of their ships on the shores of the Battle Isles.

“The Balancing is an art, brother. It is a formative art. Balancing the dark and light spirit requires manipulating the patterns that are beautiful, but also novel and compelling. Only in that art can the war truly begin and end.”

She could sense his questions, the quickening of his pulse, his lips pulling apart to ask, his lungs ready to exhale and speak. She interrupted this process. “To walk the Path of Grenth is to recognize the wind, how tall and how complex. The wind is analogous of people and of society and government. I walk the Path of Balthazar, you of Grenth, and this is at it should be.”

“As tall as my limited perception and as complex as my waking mind, Old Warrior.” He found repeating the same old rhetoric unimportant now, especially as he faced his one tutor whom he could not understand. Though he was training under Panaku to be assassin, this woman, Ol Murrani Kasale – often simply referred to as the Old Warrior of the Hill - had caught his eye from the first day at the monastery. She was Zaishen, and was one of Master Togo’s better students. She had seen much, and now she was the GuildMaster of the Zaishen Order Guild, Budo. That she was warrior was obvious, but of her separate side, he did not know. She could speak of things spiritual as could any ritualist, but also of healing and things natural and elemental. She was Master of the Sword and of the Bow, yet she did not fit any of them.

“Then listen well and learn of the Way of True Thought. Zaishen are the sons and daughters of Balthazar, the Father. Our ancestors were destined to be the warlords of the Battle Isles even as they lived in caves with the rest of humanity. In those days, the wisdom of Bathazar kindled in mystics, who then taught the holiest of warriors. You know these as the Zaishen. I speak of the oldest art before even the making of the world, carried finally from the Mists beyond into our Empire. These are their words, the words of the mystics. Listen well.”

She continued. “True Thought is a Gift of the Gods to their adherents. In your case, Grenth to his assassins - and it is the creative energy of evolving life. This creativity is not the product of conscious effort but rather the phenomenon of life itself. Matter can do nothing but evolve, but this creates disharmony. Zaishen on the Great and Golden Path must balance that disharmony, a deed only capable in the act of true creation.”

His eyes widened. “Only through a state of no-mind can that occur.”

Perhaps he was gaining better insight than she had believed. “Yes, the continuous state free of the thoughts and ideas that distract the mind. That state where family, social acceptance and government do not exist. To fight because there is a fight is the correct Way, the Way of things now between the Luxon and the Kurzick. Only in True Thought can we evolve beyond that simple construct, to take up that act of creation.”

He spoke now, seeming to be without the consternation of his previous self. “To batter the walls of ambivalence and to create juxtaposed events that will get the peoples of the Empire to release their ideas of limited war. Commit or end it.”

“Be warned pupil,” she started, “Balancing demands the highest level of spirituality. An act of Balancing that manifests clarity cannot be drawn if the heart is clouded by worldly concerns; the stroke of the Balancing cannot be brushed with resolution if the heart is agitated; and Balancing that reveals depth cannot be produced if cultivation and experience are shallow.”

“I see the Way of it,” he replied. He walked in a tight circle around her, both having spent the last hour at the center axis of the house on the edge of the sea. Together, they felt their breath in exhale and inhale, heard his feet padding in careful step around her, their mindfulness stretching outward to the heavy breeze that remained even in the dusk. They swayed to the timing of the waves battering the shore, calming but deadly.

“Questions?”

“Yes, Old Warrior,” he said, hesitated then asked, “These words you spoke to me are the Words of the Gods. I understand, and I will contemplate them as you have taught. These Words are the evolution of the Gods’ Great Plan, and to use them is the Golden Path.”

“Your question?”

“You charged your Guild to be ally of the Kurzick’s Holy War against the Luxon. Is that an event of Balancing? I did not know the Zaishen took sides in war where neither side is right or wrong.”

“Balancing cannot be achieved by seeing the largest group. Only the hunter and the hunted, those two archetypal symbols can restore the balance; one by hunting, the other by dying. Something is coming to Cantha, spreading disease and disrupting the ferry to the Mists. Perhaps you will be called to do battle with it.”

She could feel his puzzlement, so she elaborated. “Only experience will give you the answer – perhaps it will be your blades that cut down the coming storm. As to the matter of the alliance wars? Your mind sees all the people of Cantha and tries to find a logical answer to the disparity of being a single spirit having to choose a side, which in the end is pitting you against them all. Do you see? Can you fight them all? Can they all die? Can they all be at peace?”

“No, well, no, I don’t know. It seems so fruitless.”

“Then you have learned something. You must be the change you want to see in the world. When you are mindful of your breath, of your step, of your heart, then the whole of Cantha is mindful. You must choose to help the Luxon or the Kurzick, or this Empire will remain unbalanced. Choose, and that act balances the equation - just as it should be.”

“Then when will the Balancing be complete in my lifetime?”

The sun grew brighter in its last few moments that day, and she closed her eyes to it though they were blind. “There is balance when the hunter and the hunted become one.”