The monk had scoffed in amusement when Gyre had offered to move to the pack mule and give the monk his own horse to ride. After a day of travel, Gyre began to see why. The monk never seemed to tax himself. To look at him, he was simply walking. Yet he maintained pace with the horses easily. It was somewhat disorienting to watch, and Gyre’s mind insisted that the monk was moving leisurely, yet they had in fact increased their pace significantly from before meeting the monk, when they had simply been wandering aimlessly.
They had averaged fifteen leagues a day by his estimate. Based upon what little the monk had told them of their destination, they were close to reaching their destination. They had left the plains of the western empire behind and entered the highlands that spanned the middle of the expansive continent.
The valley they were traveling through was bountiful, and they stopped to replenish their supplies at the village, buying all of the tack and oats that the little general store had based upon the monk’s implication that it might be their last opportunity to obtain supplies for some time.
Conversation had been tense since the monk had joined their party. Jazirqe and Ita rode side by side and discussed things too quietly for Gyre to overhear unless he consciously enhanced his senses to do so, which he had elected not to do. Baturya, however, remained tense and sullen since his fight with the monk. Gyre was uncertain what was troubling the boy, but he figured that all teens went through a sullen period and determined that he would only intervene if he showed no signs of pulling through it on his own.
That left only one partner for conversation, although the monk was yet to engage the others on topics outside the journey. There were questions that had been burning in Gyre’s mind, however, and he decided that asking would do no harm.
“Are many mendicants immortals, or are you an exception?” he asked, pulling alongside the monk.
“Every individual is exceptional in some fashion,” the monk answered cryptically.
“It is more than simple curiosity that drives me to ask,” Gyre admitted. “I am at the precipice of making an important decision. I remain uncertain how well I would do with long years of isolation. But if your order provides a path in which--”
“You lack the devotion to the divine required to join our order,” the monk interrupted. “Whether or not you would find our company tolerable in the long years in front of one of the paths before you is unimportant. While we share a certain camaraderie within the order, and with those who have stepped off the mortal path, we welcome only those with genuine devotion.”
“I see,” Gyre said, frowning. “I did not know your selection criteria was so strict.”
“For most, it is not,” the monk admitted. “You speak of undertaking lifelong vows of poverty and service. Had you considered the difference between your lifetime and that of most of my little brothers? You are still thinking in terms of years and decades. I have been wandering with my bowl for centuries. It remains as rewarding to me today as it was when I was a young man freshly awakened. But my story is not a common one among my brothers. Most who break free of their mortality also break the vows that they take when they were young.”
“I admit that I had not considered it in those terms,” Gyre admitted. “I did not mean to belittle your faith, or your order.”
The monk huffed. “My faith is not something that depends upon your opinion of it. As for my order? It is older than you know, and it has survived much and many that have dismissed it. We have lived through acceptance and persecution. One fool king thought to purge us from his land with violence, only to find all hands turned against him. Another sought to bankrupt by seizing what little permanent assets we held in his lands. We claimed those holy sites back within two generations. My order has endured the scorn of emperors and kings, we can withstand the belittlement from a young man uncertain of what path to take.”
Gyre nodded at the chastisement. “I apologize all the same. I understand that my interest in your order was ultimately self-serving and accept your rejection on those grounds.”
“You are far from the first to entertain such thoughts, child Gyre. In truth it was you that I thought I was sent to guide until the demon-child made himself known to me,” the monk admitted.
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Gyre objected.
“Unorthodoxy is unnatural. We tolerate the Law because it is better than the alternatives. The few other schools which are allowed to exist do so to serve as a warning of the dangers of this path. You do not need to know why this is so. It is better that the reason for the prohibition remains forgotten, buried by the sands of time.”
“Even so,” Gyre insisted. “I would appreciate it if you found some less offensive term. Or perhaps simply used his name.”
The monk huffed, dissatisfied with the topic of conversation. “Why did you set down the road of cultivation, child?”
Gyre considered the question, and found no easy answer. “I was young. I challenged the Sudamon’s tournament as much out of hope of winning a bit of silver as any hope of actually being selected. But selected I was, and once I was on the path it seemed too lucrative to leave. And for a while, I had a purpose. My personal philosophy meshed well with the Sudaman Sect. I enjoyed teaching the next generation to control and channel their ki, and for a while my own progress stagnated. Baturya is largely responsible for my ascension to the stage that I have now. He gave me a kick in the ass that pushed me through the fifth bottleneck, and he is directly responsible for the insights and motivations which allowed me to surpass the sixth.”
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
The monk glanced over at the sullen teen, who noticed and returned the look with a suspicious glare. “And you have no resentment for changing the course of your life? You would not be facing this dilemma had you not been forced by circumstance to advance. It sounds like you miss your old life as a simple teacher.”
Gyre considered the question and shrugged. “Sometimes I do miss the simplicity of things before I met Baturya and his friends. I may attribute the success I’ve achieved partially to him, but the choice to advance my cultivation were ultimately my own. I would be a fool to blame a teenager whom I was supposed to be educating for my own decisions. Besides, although I am uncertain what shape I wish the rest of my life to take, and sometimes I find myself nostalgic, I do not regret the path I have taken.”
“And yet you are hesitating at the threshold. It is clear to me that you are ready to take the next step and only lack the will to do so,” the monk said.
“I was advised that the life of an immortal is a lonely one, and that I should be very certain that I could handle the isolation before--”
The monk’s scoff interrupted him. “Of course it is a lonely life when children grow to adulthood in the blink of an eye and adults become elders in the space of a breath. That is true whether you have fifty years left to live or five hundred. That does not mean that you need to isolate yourself, although many in your situation choose that path. Many others live quiet, obscure, happy lives.”
“How do they obscure their longevity?” Gyre inquired.
“Who says they do?” The monk gave him a shrewd look. “I’ve met men and women of the city who have been tending the same shop for generations. I know village aldermen who have held their position for centuries. The common folk either believe in us or they do not. Those who believe may seek your blessing once they realize the truth. Those who do not will develop excuses that they tell themselves. It is not our job to dissuade them of our existence. It may be taboo to draw attention to yourself once you have achieved a certain age, but it is no crime to simply be alive.”
“That is not what Qikobi explained to me,” Gyre objected.
“You listened to that pup?” the monk scoffed. “He is a young fool. Talented perhaps, but a fool. Even as a child he could not stand to stay put in one place. Do not take him as an example. If you must take advice from those who have been down the road you are contemplating, then I will make some proper introductions for you, once we see the dem … once we see Baturya receives the proper guidance on his path to avoid becoming a monster.”
“What is it, exactly, that has you so on edge about him?” Gyre asked. “I see nothing but a young prodigy.”
“That is because unorthodoxy has been suppressed for a very long time. True unorthodoxy, not the pale imitations which have been allowed to subsist like weeds growing between the cobbles. The last time it was allowed to flourish was before the founding of the current empire, and it was a terrible time to be alive,” the monk explained.
“And you remember this time?” Gyre inquired.
The monk chuckled. “I was born in the midst of it.”
~~~~~~~~~
Unoro had trouble remembering his interrogation. The man had done something to him, something to his mind. Something like what the Law might do to a hardened criminal accused of the most heinous of crimes. He could not recall, but he knew that he had been questioned for hours, and the sense of violation into his private thoughts remained even as the memory of the encounter was wiped away.
He did remember the stranger, though. Blond haired, blue eyed, ageless. Terrifying. Unoro couldn’t say exactly what it was about the man that frightened him so, but none of the other pirates gave off such a terrible feeling. Gyre had the sense that, to the stranger, the entire ship might as well been filled only with termites.
He was not returned to the hold with the other prisoners, but rather placed in his own cabin afterward. He spent a day in a haze, the hours drifting by as he struggled to come to terms with what had just happened to him. With what he couldn’t remember but knew to be a terrible experience. Invasive and traumatizing. More so for that it was forgotten, not less.
Three more days passed as he recovered. The pirates brought him food and water and an empty bucket, the intended use of which was obvious by its smell. Unoro was no longer optimistic about his prospects of being ransomed, and he was afraid to ask after his fate.
It was on the fifth day after his interrogation that he heard the sounds of violence. Dragging himself off of the floor, he looked out the porthole to see that the ship was surrounded by a small flotilla, but it was a struggle to call the ships that had encircled the pirates ‘ships.’ They were certainly not large enough for cargo of any significant amount. They looked like pleasure yachts, not true seafaring vessels.
And there were children upon them. No adults, just children, all appearing below the age of fifteen. Some of the older children had toddlers and babes in their arms, but they were all facing the pirate ship with solemn expressions.
The sounds of battle proceeded for twenty minutes before the din quieted to an eerie silence. The young man frowned, but after an eternal moment of stillness, he heard a splash. Then another, and another, and many more to follow. As he watched, something fell in front of his porthole, and he was fairly certain that it was a body.
Long moments passed after the splashes stopped, but eventually the door to his cabin was opened. He was quite surprised to find that his rescuer, if rescued he was, was a bare chested woman, with a dark tan from long days under the sun. She frowned at him.
“Pirate?” she asked.
“No! Prisoner!” he said.
“We have freed all of the prisoners already. They were kept below, and not in so nice condition,” she informed him. “Prove that you are not a pirate.”
“I, I had information that the pirates wanted. I don’t know why, but they decided to keep me separate. Please don’t kill me, I’ve never hurt anybody in my life!”
The woman frowned at him, then nodded. “That will do. Come with me. You must tell your story to Pest Kozi.”
She turned, and Unoro eagerly followed her out of the cramped quarters that had been his prison for nearly a week. “Who are you people?”
“We are the Kastazee,” she said. “Friend to the marooned, the shipwrecked, and the wrongfully enslaved. And bane of pirates. Be grateful that Pest Kozi sensed the misery that this ship has caused and decided to intervene.”