“As much as anyone can be.”
“Then he may share with you. Might tell you what he’s up to…”
Shigeo stopped. “I am to be a spy?”
“Consider it a favor.”
Shigeo nodded, bade him farewell. Yora found himself alone, but for the breeze and the grass and the shifting thoughts of what they’d said. And what they hadn’t said; what that look, what Goshira’s colder gaze, had conveyed across the field. The retired-emperor, as always, was testing him.
But for what, he didn’t know.
CHAPTERNINE
Sen
Sen had been with the crow monk for three months, and had yet to touch a sword.
“We’ll get to it,” the crow monk said.
“When?”
“When you’re ready.”
He stopped at that. His master offered nothing more, only clasped his hand on the prayer staff and moved on down the trail.
They were high on the Godspath, carrying water back to Kannagara. Usually, Sen would do this task alone – his duties were to gather firewood, carry water, and clean the temple with the monks – but today Jobo had decided to join him.
“Are you in such a hurry, now, to kill?” he asked. “First lesson: I will tell you about a strange experience I had, when my eyes began to open.”
“I came to learn to fight,” Sen said. “Not listen to lessons of faith.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’m a warrior.”
“And you already know how to fight. Why waste precious time to train you in something you’re already good at?”
“I’ve seen what you can do,” said Sen. “You have powers.”
Jobo chuckled. “Many people think that way.”
“Then why am I here, if you’re not going to train me? You said, ‘learn’.”
“I did. You want to be a warrior? Want to kill? What do you think a warrioris?” Jobo trudged on a moment, and said:
“I learned, after I lost everything in the great earthquake, people thought the Serpent had come again to shatter the dragonfly islands into the sea… One day, there was an eerie light in the sky, and the earth shook again, and from the east, waves rose higher than mountains and swept themselves across the land.
“After the shaking of the earth, I had a revelation. It was not just the earth that shook, it was the entire universe. I saw: all things contain the universe inside themselves… and I felt it quake, everything quaked, and my body changed; my mind changed in an instant. I saw the source of the Way is love, protection, for all beings… It is not a means to kill and destroy. It is a way of peace. The teachers say, ‘All the deities of the ten-fold universe traverse the path to the one right road. Where does it begin?’”
He pointed with his prayer staff, waiting for Sen to answer. “Come. We’re not there yet.”
The outvillage lay ahead of them, and no’in could be seen, toiling on the paddies for the late harvest.
“We’re here to work,” Jobo said. “Just as we are born, and grow and take our place among the waters of the world: the gentle stalks take their place among the water-beds.”
Sen paused, reluctant. “I’m not a farmer.”
Jobo tapped him on the head with his staff, just hard enough to sting.
