“The teacher said,‘Exactly.’
“The monks were struck with awe.”
With that, he grinned as though he had just imparted the greatest wisdom in the universe, and walked off, whistling a happy tune.
Sen rolled his eyes. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“Good! It bogs me down.”
“You’re infuriating!”
“Am I?”
“Yes!”
“Good!”
The metal rings on Jobo’s staff clinked softly, like bells, and Sen had no choice but to follow him along the trail. After a few moments, Jobo stopped and sat heavily on a log.
“Sit,” he said. “And I will teach you. Every god is all the gods. We’re all just spirits, they say, in different forms. But the imperials in the royal court have become too obsessed with their own imagined history, they’vestarted thinking that because of what happened a thousand years ago, they are special, that they can control the gods, as Sora’in did. But she never controlled the gods.
“The old ways have always been different,” he said. “Our predecessors who were born in this land saw things differently than we. The gods they pray to in the capital were not always their gods. People forget this.”
“Then who did they pray to?”
“The mountains. The sky and the rain and the vast oceans around us. The earth itself. Every being in this world has within it one spirit and two souls, Sen. Opposing, interrelated elements of life. The angry soul, vigorous, selfish, full ofpassion; and the tranquil soul, calm, selfless, full ofcompassion. We need both; a unity, of both, is how we make our steps.
“Magic is more simple, and far more difficult, than it seems. Humans cannot do magic, so we must make requests for the spirits to grant things on our behalf… if we give them what they want. That, of course, has some major consequences. Magic means one thing: we ask the gods to do something for us. And yes, the problem is, sometimes they say yes.”
Sen sat with this for a while, thinking. Above them, the branches of the great trees creaked and shifted, teasing each other like so many soft hands reaching for a blue-lit sky. “Teacher,” he asked. “What really happened to my family?”
“You know the story of the war.”
“I know we were allied to the Keishi. I know they helped Goshira take the throne. Then they turned on us. My father tried to stop them, that’s why he was killed. That’s why we’re exiled.”
“It was more complicated than that.” Jobo’s eyes had gone cold. “Goshira fought against his brother, Sutoh, for the throne. Your two families supported him. They banished Sutoh, and he became obsessed with dark magic. His daughter died. He vowed revenge. Some say he went mad, bitter with rage… Some say he became a demon. If we ever want to prevent something like that from happening again, it will be up to each of us, individually, to fight for it. The sins of the past lie on our shoulders. And it will be our individual healing that adds together. Nothing more.
“What this means is that the warrior’s lot is not a good path to enlightenment,” Jobo continued. “Sins in this life carry over to the next. And what is our job, we warriors, what is our whole existence, but to be the ones who sin? We kill. There is nothing good about that. And yet, that is who we are. So we are condemned to be reborn as sinners again. And again after that, with every incarnation. This is why so many look for solace in the new religions. They’re searching for another path to enlightenment.Because they know living a good life is beyond them. It’s something they hope to see in others, but which they will never have. So they sit, and they say their mantras, and they pray.”
“They think saying the same dumb words over and over again will bring enlightenment?”
“How do you know it won’t?”
“Sounds like it’d make you lose your mind,” Sen said.
And that’s when Jobo smiled. “Enough for today. Let us go home again, before it gets dark.”
That evening, he found Rui sweeping the gate. The edge of the Godspath lay before them, dappled like emeralds in sunset, and when they walked back toward the dormitory, the Godspath trees shivered in the fading light. Soon they saw, above them, a stream of stars.
“Look,” Sen said. “The heavenly river.” They walked the path a few moments more. “You know, the autumn festival is coming up. I was wondering, maybe after practice, I thought if you would want to go?”
Rui smiled. “What would we do there?”
“I don’t know. The whole city’s gonna be there.”
“But not the crow monks.”
“Come,” Sen said. “They’ll let us. It’ll be fun.”
