Yuri sat on the stairs that led up to the intact part to the palisade. If the sun was able to shine and you were in a place where you were safe from the wind, Dolustea could be a pleasant and beautiful place if you managed to gaze deep into the horizon and see the tops of the mountains far away that usually were hidden in the low hanging clouds. If you looked anywhere nearer, however, there was very little beauty to be found.

The village and the people in it were so primitive that even some parts of the slums on Llpaus didn't look so bad in comparison. All the streets were covered in a thick mud where you could lose your boots and in the middle of them there were wooden planks where you could walk on, but the planks didn't lead everywhere and if you had a vehicle of some sort, like a cart or a rickshaw, you were forced to trod in the mud. Most of the houses were wooden shacks that didn't have windows and the ventilation was so bad that everything was covered in soot from the fireplace. The nicer stone buildings were basically manors for the rich elite, but the people here did not have the concept of a corridor, so all the rooms were just connected to each other and you'd have to walk through all of them to get to the one where you wanted to and people could be doing anything in the rooms you traveled through, from sleeping and working to relieving themselves or copulating. Most of the common folk were living on a barely subsistence level and you could see their eyes were deep in their skulls and their faces looked like skulls from malnutrition. The whites of the said eyes were often yellowish from some disease and the few teeth people had were black, and it was evident that if somebody here reached their forties they were ancient for the standards of the place. The warrior elite was more healthy and their bodies were athletic and strong, but to Yuri's shock it became clear that the aboriginals here practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, and Yuri wondered if that was the source of their strong bodies since there seemed to be very little protein about otherwise. One of the stone buildings looked different and there was dried up blood all over and human bones. Some of the bones were so small that they could not have come from an adult, and Yuri felt a shudder and revulsion so deep that he had not felt before.

But the imperials had not been any better and Yuri was beside himself. He had fought in the camp and once the assassins had been defeated and Yuri reached the village after the assault had succeeded, it had been a complete massacre. The imperial soldiers had barged into homes and shot and stabbed whoever they pleased and young men were pulled to the streets and beaten, some of them beheaded afterwards with a ceremonial sword. A group of people had been shut inside a house and explosives had been tossed in before the door had been closed. Women both young and old were became the victims of rape. Yuri had frozen where he stood as he watched it all in the midst of the burning buildings and when one of the imperials dragged a woman inside a house Yuri followed, shut the door and elbowed the man to the back of his head so hard that he lost consciousness. The woman ran back to the street and Yuri lost sight of her as she disappeared into the chaos. Yuri couldn't take it anymore and he left the village for the woods nearby.

He came back the next day and the village had calmed down in the next few days, but the imperials were ruling with an iron fist and they clearly saw themselves as the righteous conquerors. The locals became their servants and most of them were deemed to receive at least a kick in passing, if not more. Alcohol had been found and there had been excessive drinking. The women became the mistresses of the officers and the common soldiers used whoever they could in secret. The Major did nothing to control those under him, and it seemed that he was quickly falling back into his boozy ways on Llapus. There was no more immediate danger and the mining had been started properly on the minecite site. It had turned out exactly as Yuri had feared when he had listened to Ambrozy's words about the mission of the empire and it was not likely going to be much better any better in the near future. “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” as the famous saying went. And Yuri had certainly done so.

He got up and walked up the stairs to the palisade, gloomy and feeling ill in his own skin. He had guessed that there might be fighting on Dolustea and the locals probably would not bid them welcome and they had done what was needed for self-defense given the circumstances, but what had shook him was the sharp and gleeful cruelty of the imperials that had so readily burst out when the possibility arose. Yuri could understand some overreactions, a couple of their compatriots had died in these battles and many had been wounded, and on the night of the ambush the expedition had peered over the brink into annihilation, but that the atrocities were so brutal and so total, towards anything and everything behind these walls was the definition of evil for Yuri. Could it really be so that it was not this on the other corners of the empire, not like Llapus or Dolustea, if it all could go so bad so fast, under a pressure that all had voluntarily agreed on and all had trained for for all their lives? It was bad on Llapus, but Ambrozy had spoken about it as a corruption, a degradation of something better that once had been, but if it all had started like this everywhere where the empire had spread, how could it have gotten any better in the first place? Was it just that he was running with a bad batch, people who had only known the exploitation they had committed on Llapus, and this was not normal? Or was this something that was inherent to man, a feature of its core that could not change? Could what Ambrozy had told him be true at all? Yuri leaned against the palisade and looked into the distance. He was afraid of what the answers to his questions might be.

Then he noticed Oktai sitting outside the walls on a big rock that was next to a pond where the water stood still, so deeply blue that it was almost black. The tall grass around the pond bent slightly in the wind. Oktai's back was against the village and Yuri found him a curious sight. He went to see what he was doing there.

Oktai did not react in any way when Yuri approached him, and the monk's eyes were closed. Yuri thought that he had fallen asleep in a sitting position, but his back was completely straight and his breathing was not that of a sleeping man. “What are you doing?” Yuri said and he broke the silence. Oktai took full two seconds to open his eyes, a task that seemed particularly heavy for him, and it seemed that he had come back from some place far away, his earthly vessel having been left behind, and the distance he had traveled in these two seconds was that from Llapus to Dolustea and back again. He smiled warmly once he realized who was speaking to him, and his whole manner was that of a man who felt genuine affection to all life around him. “Ah, brother Yuri. What can I do for you?” he said, his eyes smiling more deeply than his mouth.

'

Yuri wanted to punch him. Days like these go by in a place like this and this loathsome fool just sits here content like a witless cow in a field of grass? Never before had Yuri felt that something could be so insulting, not against him but towards the universe at large, and his hands tightened into fists as fury rose within him. “You smile? You smile like that after all that has happened?” he said with a rising voice, gesturing towards the village in an aggressive notion with every word he said. The monk's smile faded and he became serious and somber, his gaze fixing on the pond as his head nodded a bit as he fell deep in thought. “Yes, it has been... regrettable.” Oktai said. Yuri could not even muster a word against understatements like this. “Man falls so fast on excessive deeds like this, but that is the reason we are here. Why do we need the empire.” Oktai continued. “What we hold civilized and dear to us does not come naturally to man, and no matter what we are always running uphill. If we stop, days like these become the norm and our base nature catches us. This is why the scripture of Kai ceases to be a religion and it simply is an examination of our character and what we need to do about it. You know this.” He turned his gaze towards Yuri and saw his anger. “But maybe you don't. You did say that your education is incomplete and it has just started in earnest. We need to talk anyway. Sit. It's alright.” Oktai said and gestured towards the rock opposite of him. Yuri did not want to sit, but the worst of his outburst had burned away once he had let it out, so he inhaled heavily and sat down.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Oktai rubbed the back of his left hand with his right slowly, formulating how he could be as clear as possible with his explanation. Then he tapped the rock he was sitting on with his fingers. “This isn't it. It feels so real and we can feel so wretched on it, in it, here on Dolustea or back on Llapus or anywhere. But this isn't it.” Oktai looked into Yuri's eyes. “What separates man from all the other beasts is the spark we have in ourselves. That spark is a link to a... higher reality, I guess I could explain it as simply that. That higher reality is the plane of existence we are supposed to be in, not this one where we are wet and cold and vengeful. But the link was broken, you see, one way or another, and we were stranded and we regressed. What was once beautiful and perfect and true was broken, so long ago that we can't reach it, and it could very well be connected with why humanity can be found on all corners of the galaxy. But what history can't remember the myth does: the spark in us creates the doubt, the doubt that things should not be as they are, and the doubt ends up in the stories we tell and thus the stories become true and the myth is who we are. The first emperor felt this, he could not say what bothered him but he knew that it was there, and he started to create order around him, from all that chaos and baseness of the beasts, and he knew that it must be so. When the Cult of Kai was born the first priests and monks had finally found the words and the doubt was manifested and the words could spread, and we all could know what we had to do and what we were here for. It wouldn't need to be like this. It could be better.”

Oktai smiled slightly. “It is true that a lot of the people around now still aren't ready for it, a vast majority even. Many things that us monks do is meant to serve the needs of people on this level of existence, as misguided as that sounds, but we can't leave all the others here and pursue our own connection with the divine and forsake them, their potential. Our men were brutal against these villagers, absolutely brutal, but they have not really known any other way in their lives and the locals here haven't either. In such a stage is our journey. But part of that higher reality is love: love of our fellow, love of life and earth and forest and the stars, and we will take those with us who are of this wretched world, of this way of being that we should not be, no matter how cruel they are, how sinful they are, no matter how dirty and damned, because we know that it will not always be like this. For we know how it will be. We know the truth.”

Oktai turned his head and gazed into the horizon. “I came on this expedition to have my faith tested, even against the greatest horrors of life, to bear witness to it, but also to inspire and kindle the sacred spark and have our soldiers know that the task they have been given is great and noble. The fire of battle got the best of them, they gave in to the animal nature, but men are weak and that's why they need us. That's why they need you.” He turned to look at Yuri again, this time with a very serious expression. “We could have all died in that ambush if it not had been for you, it was so close. Brother Ambrozy found you for a reason. You are meant to be here with us, on this expedition. Don't give in to despair now.”

The anger in Yuri had somewhat faded, but now he didn't know what to feel. “So I should just have... blind fate, is that it?” he asked. Oktai smiled warmly. “Nothing blind about it.” They sat there silent, the wind bending the reeds around them in steady waves and the water in the pond was so dark that you barely saw any movement on its surface. “The next step on your journey, my friend, is towards yourself. The evenings of any monk's life are mostly dedicated to contemplation, meditation, and prayer. You should start on that path, and little by little, you will find the steadiness and patience you so desperately crave. Your conviction shall deepen and you will not be strayed from your mission. It is exceedingly hard on days like this, I know, but there would have been a breakthrough long ago if any of this would be easy.” Oktai instructed Yuri. “Tonight, just sit still with your eyes closed, and contemplate on the holy mission and the sacred spark. It will feel like fumbling in the dark at first, maybe for a long time, but I'm here to help you. It'll be alright in the end.”

Once the evening came and everyone besides the night watchmen had gone to sleep, Yuri leaned against the railing of a porch on the house he was sleeping his nights in, and he tried to make sense of what Oktai had told him. He really didn't understand what “contemplation” was supposed to mean and was the “sacred spark” something concrete he should be able to feel or sense somewhere inside of him, but he mostly doubted if a practice consisting of just sitting and thinking with his eyes closed would be anywhere near enough to counter the heavy burdens the tangible and all too real world was throwing at him. Everything was just too painful: Yuri started to empathize with the junkies in the slums on Llapus who used anything and everything to get high every chance they got, just to get out of where they were since there were no other options left. As a younger man Yuri had despised them, seen them as weak and cowardly, but now Yuri was finally finding himself knocking on that same door as those junkies had. Maybe they just had been more sensible that Yuri was even able to, realizing their situation straight up and not leaning on some hazy dream of redemption and self-discovery Yuri had been putting his chips on all these years. He realized that he had just as much access to the medical chest of the expedition as everyone else, even more so now that he had accidentally distinguished himself on the night of the ambush, and the taste he had gotten from the stimulants was too bright and too much during these weak moments he was having more and more on each passing day. And now he was being genuinely offered the way of the monk, the way of contemplation and self-denial of the religion of an empire he so truly despised and saw as cracked and corrupt, even though everyone kept telling him how secretly amazing it all was supposed to be.

If he was to take the bait, to take the next step and fully commit to this wonderful dream that kept the walls up for so many people around him, there was no way that mere “contemplation” would be enough. What bothered Yuri the most about all this were the genuine and peaceful smile on Oktai's face and the unwavering conviction inside Ambrozy's scheming mind. Both of these people were at peace with themselves, albeit in very different ways, but all the same unreachable to Yuri, taunting his weakness of character. Just sitting quietly would not do it for him. It should hurt like everything else in this world did, for the medicine that would work would need to be bitter, and nothing meaningful in this life would not show itself without sacrifice, without a price to be paid. He would need to be stronger if he was to take any more steps, and agony and pain would be the fires he would temper himself with. If he would not be able to take it he would never be worth it. This was the reasoning Yuri followed.

He went to a kit that had spare parts for the exoskeletons and took out a hollow plastic tube, used to cover the wires that went all over inside the machine, and went to the pond where he had been talking with Oktai. It was completely dark out besides the lights of the night watches up on the parts of the palisade that were still standing and Yuri could barely see where he was stepping in, but he instinctively knew where to walk like he had always been able to. Yuri undressed completely and the snow and ice under his feet sent shivers up his body and the wind just emphasized the bitter cold of the Dolustean night. Yuri walked into the pond, almost yelping from touching the icy water, and he swam when his feet could not touch the bottom any longer. Once he was in the middle of it, he placed the hollow tube into his mouth, his teeth chattering and him having trouble steadying his breath, Yuri submerged into the water, getting air through the tube, just focusing on breathing in the dark and cold.

And he stayed down far longer than it was healthy to.