by Peter David
I paused, and then smiled broadly. “Tomorrow… master.”
“Yes,” and this time a genuine smile crept across his face. “You see? Meditation leads you to be able to accomplish that which you did not know you could accomplish. To be able to rid yourself of all concerns. Once you find your core of inner peace, nothing can disturb you. All mistakes in combat stem from disruption of the spirit. With your spirit intact, you can be invincible.”
“Invincible. Well, I like the sound of that… master,” I added.
I look back on that exchange now and am, frankly, somewhat mortified by it. That I would have so quickly, so willingly given myself over to Ali and his teachings would seem to fly in the face of the inveterate skeptic that I have always painted myself to be.
I can offer you but one reasonable explanation, and indeed it is one that I have had to ponder long and hard to intuit.
The most fundamental impulse of a man is to please his father. But for all of my early years, I had no father. Just an unknown bastard of a knight who had produced a bastard of a son. While I was growing up, the significant adult male in my life was an abusive tavern owner who employed my mother as a prostitute. Eventually I did learn my father’s identity, and during our fleeting time together, all I wanted to do was kill him. Hardly an ideal situation for male bonding.
In short, I had never had a significant, stable, fatherlike individual in my life. And although Chinpan Ali at first exuded a gruffness and emotional distance, I also believed that he wanted me to succeed. That he was looking for someone to whom he could pass on his techniques and knowledge, and considered me to be that person.
…I wanted more than I had. I wanted to be more than I was. My constant gnawing dissatisfaction was eating away at me like a cancer, and I believed that Ali might well be the cure.
I got to my feet with my usual clumsiness, and Ali said, “Another riddle to consider until tomorrow: Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
“Because they both require quills to truly take wing,” I replied.
He stared at me. “Oh” was all he said, and then quickly he added,
“All right. Come back tomorrow and I’ll have another one for you.”
“I’ll be here,” I said.
When I returned the next day, Chinpan Ali presented me with two handheld blocks, each of which had a rough, gritty texture on one side. They had straps on the back to make them easy to place on my hands. I held them up, studying them curiously. “What are they?” I asked.
“For sanding,” he replied. “Smoothing down of surface.”
“All right,” I said gamely. “So… what am I supposed to do with them.”
“Sand the floor.”
I blinked. “Pardon?”
He pointed down. “Sand the floor. Make motions like this,” and he swept his arms around in two semicircles. “You understand?”
“Well… yes, I understand the motions. But…”
“No but. No question,” he said sternly. “Show me sand-the-floor.”
“But… it’s a dirt floor,” I pointed out.
“No matter.”
“Master, I’m not exactly a carpenter, but even I know that sanding something usually involves wood.”
He folded his arms and gave me that same intense look that he had the first day we’d met. “Who is master here, and who is student? Show me sand-the-floor.”
“It’s a dirt floor!” I wailed.
“Show!”
So I sanded the dirt floor.
It worked out about as well as you might expect. Dirt flew everywhere. I got it in my eyes, my lungs. To this day, I think I still have some dirt beneath my fingernails. By the end of the day, the only parts of me that weren’t covered in dirt were the parts where little channels of sweat had trickled down my skin. The only area of the floor I didn’t touch was near his personal effects. I prepared to move some of them, such as his trunk, but he told me to leave them where they were. So I simply sanded around them.
And all during that time, Ali—standing just outside the door so that none of the clouds of dirt could bother him—spoke of the various philosophies of Zennihilation. He spoke of the two different techniques of meditation, Rinsai and Soako. He talked about containers, and how I should envision myself as an empty cup, because only then could I be filled with knowledge. He discussed the beginnings of Zennihilation, which apparently had their start with temple priests who allowed themselves to be subjected to incessant taunts and torments by soldiers, specifically so they could allow their focused rage to build to a point where they would be unstoppable.
He spoke of many things. Fools and kings. Ultimately, though, it all came back to the fact that I was sanding a goddamn dirt floor until every muscle in my body was aching and crying out for rest.
Finally he strode into the hut and stared at the floor, filled with hundreds upon hundreds of swirl marks. “All right. Stand up,” he said, gesturing for me to rise.
Slowly, my body screaming in pain, I got to my feet, favoring my right leg even more than I usually did. I stared woefully at my dirt-encrusted clothes. All I could think about was throwing myself in the river to cleanse myself and, if I was really, really lucky, drown.
“Now,” he said, “you will instinctively be able to use the sand-the-floor technique to defend yourself against an attack.”
“I will?” I asked.
“Yes.”
And then he was glaring at me, and a low growl was coming from his throat like that of an angry mongrel.
That was when he let out an earsplitting howl and drew back his fist, clearly ready to hit me.
I did the first thing that came to mind: I brought the two sand blocks up, both still in my hands, and started smacking them together repeatedly. Naturally this caused a huge cloud of dirt to rise from between my hands. Chinpan Ali staggered back, coughing violently, trying to ward it off and not succeeding. He lurched out into the open air, leaned against the hut, and continued to cough until his lungs were clear.
“Is that what you had in mind, master?” I called to him.
There was a pause, and then he said, “Yes. Exactly. Very good.”
I couldn’t have been happier. All right, yes, I could have been. I could have been not covered with soil and not aching in every joint. Aside from that, though, I was in relatively good spirits.
Once more we sat and meditated. This time he said to me, “What is greater than the gods, more evil than the devil. The poor have it. The rich need it. And if you eat it, you’ll die.”
I thought about that one a good long time. I drifted deeper and deeper into my musings, letting my thoughts wander far afield, hoping that sooner or later they would drift back to the question at hand and I would eventually know it. Nothing seemed to be coming, however, nothing at all, nothing at…
My eyes snapped open.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing is greater than the gods or more evil than the devil. The poor have nothing, as well I know, and the rich need nothing. And if you eat nothing, you will die.”
“Come back tomorrow,” he told me as he nodded in approval.
And so it went, day after day.
Every day riddles, and lessons, and various tasks and exercises he set me to. Unfortunately, none of them ever seemed to make any damned sense. He had me spend an entire day counting individual stalks of wheat. An entire night counting stars. One afternoon was passed quacking like a duck. A morning was consumed with seeing how many grains of rice I could fit in my navel.
Once he had me water an entire field of brown grass by taking one mouthful at a time from a bucket and spitting it out upon the grass. Then he had me sit and watch the water as the sun baked it out of the ground and it dissipated. “You must understand the transient nature of the water cycle if you are to understand the transient nature of man,” he said. Fortunately I didn’t understand either, so I had achieved some degree of consistency.
And on and on it went, each task or challenge seemingly more no
nsensical than the one before. And while these went on, he would continue to talk to me about Zennihilation. How I could take down entire armies if properly trained. I would be able to break trees in half with one sweep of my hand. True Zennihilation masters, I was told, could levitate. I asked Ali if he could do so, and he said that he indeed could, but only when no one was watching. He assured me, though, that if I was a good and devoted student, at some point in the future I could not watch him do it.
There was one time in particular when I felt as if I was simply not getting it. That the teachings of Ali were beyond my ability to grasp. I confessed to my teacher, while in his hut, that I could almost sense comprehension and enlightenment, as if they were hiding just around a corner, tantalizing me.
“You cannot obtain nothing if you strive for something,” he intoned.
“But how can one achieve absolute nothingness?” I asked him.
“If one sets aside all concerns, all possessions, all self-awareness, all of it… then how can there be motivation to do anything? Rather than being able to harness nothingness, if someone achieved the level of no level at all, why would anyone care about anything enough to do anything about anything? Instead of saying, ‘I will fight,’ it would be just as easy to say, ‘I don’t c—’ “
But immediately he put a finger to my lips. “You were going to speak of not caring,” he said. I nodded. “Do not do so. You are not ready.”
“I’m… I’m not?”
He shook his head. “That is the ultimate level. You have not come close to achieving it. When you do… then you will be able to master Zennihilation. Now… I want you to stick this wheat up your nose…”
I know it sounds like madness. And yet, for the first time in my life, I had faith. Faith that it would all make sense. Faith that the pieces would come together for me sooner or later, and I would comprehend how it all related.
Because Chinpan Ali really was a good man. A good, decent man. A little strange, gods knew, but certainly there had to be some allowances made for the oddities that invariably accompanied advanced age.
And here was the other thing: As I spent time day after day in training and learning and exploring the various ramifications of Zennihilation, it left me precious little time to dwell on all the negatives that were so routine for me. My lameness of leg, my assorted failures, my burning frustrations, all faded into a sort of distant haze of obscurity.
There was always in the back of my mind the concern that more swordsmen would come. It might well have been that the Skang Kei representatives had gone around to assorted villages at random, leaving no schedule of their visitations behind. If that was the case, then quite possibly no one would realize that the tiny village of Hosbiyu was the last known whereabouts of the Skang Kei strong-men. And even if someone suspected it… what then? Without bodies or any sort of evidence, nothing could be done.
I began to relax more and more. My confidence grew. Inner peace beckoned me and I greeted it with open arms. I finally began to hope that everything was going to be all right.
I should have known better. Particularly the night when, after a long day of training, Chinpan Ali put a hand on my shoulder and said, with a winning smile, “You have endured much, Po. In many ways, you are the son I never had.”
Even as I grinned in appreciation, my inner voice—which had not been speaking to me for quite some time owing to tremendous annoyance with my recent actions—piped up and said, Well, that’s it for him, you realize.
I hate my inner voice.
Chapter 7
The Shadow Worriers
The night that I had dreaded for some time, and then was foolish enough to stop dreading (which naturally was more than enough to bring it upon us), was an inclement affair. A storm had been brewing for the last few days, and now the rain was coming down, splattering on the rooftop. But the hut was well constructed and no water was leaking in.
As the rain fell, I tried to imagine myself years from now, in exactly this same place. Would such a thing be possible? Could I truly wind up spending my life in this one small village? Certainly the villagers didn’t seem averse to my continued residence there. Perhaps, at some point in the distant future, I might actually come to think of the place as “our village” instead of “their village.”
In the twilight moments before I fell asleep, I habitually flashed upon images in my life that were typically distressing. Cities burning, or people being stabbed, or beheaded, or riddled with arrows, or falling, or being torn to bits.
This night, though, I saw myself, quite old. Perhaps as old as Ali himself. Children were ringed around me, listening intently to my every word as I imparted wisdom to them. They were smiling, and I couldn’t help but smile in return.
It was a charming image, and one that sent me gliding peacefully into slumber.
I didn’t know what time it was when I awoke. All I knew was there was trouble afoot.
There were soft footfalls outside. So soft, so delicate, that under ordinary circumstances even I, with my keen hearing, might have missed them entirely. But the rain was falling, turning the dirt road to mud, and I detected a quick splashing about. Faster than a heartbeat, gentle as a falling feather, but it was enough to reach my oversized ears.
I am not someone who wakens by degrees. I come to immediate and total awareness. It is a trait that had saved my life on more than one occasion. In the world that I live, if one does not develop a talent for waking up instantly, one can chance waking up dead.
It was a cool evening thanks to the rain, so I was dressed in loose-fitting breeches and a robelike shirt that came to just below my hips. Even in the darkness, I knew where my staff was. I never left it more than arm’s length away. Next to it was my sword. It was sitting out of the scabbard, for I had freshly oiled it earlier that evening. I was glad for that, lest the pulling of metal from its casing alert whoever might be out there.
It was intruders. I was sure of it. I knew the comings and goings and schedules of the townspeople as well as I knew my own breathing patterns. This time of night, none of them were going to be out and about. Which meant that someone who wasn’t supposed to be here… was here.
Naturally my first assumption was that more burly representatives of the Skang Kei family had arrived. That they would come looking for their missing fellow, and not leave until they had found him. Which quite possibly meant they weren’t going to be leaving ever, if Ali had to end up doing to them what he’d already done to their predecessors.
My first impulse was to hide. This was quickly followed by my second and third impulses, which were also to hide. Unfortunately, my hut was somewhat sparse in its furnishings, as were just about all of the huts except Ali’s. There was nowhere handy that I could secret myself. So I settled for simply lying as still as I could upon my sleeping mat. However, I angled myself so that I was facing the door, rather than being turned away as I had been. I closed my eyes to narrow slits, hoping I might be able to make out any intruders who entered. My hand rested lightly upon the hilt of my sword, just in case.
The slight sounds of splashing had tapered off, as if the intruders—realizing they were making noise—had ceased doing so. Had they stopped moving altogether? Or were they so superbly trained that they were able to walk about lightly enough on sodden ground without giving themselves away? I was quite accomplished in techniques of forest craft, particularly considering the physical limitations I had to bear. But even I couldn’t proceed noiselessly given the ground conditions.
At that moment, the loosely hanging door of my hut opened. It did so noiselessly, which was amazing considering the damned thing always made a racket whenever I opened it.
A figure peered in.
Since it was dark outside, and clouded over to boot, light was not plentiful. And the intruder’s method of attire did not help matters. I was reasonably sure it was a female, based on the stunningly graceful way in which she moved. But she was dressed entirely in black, head to toe. I thought, altho
ugh I could not be sure, that there was a sliver of open area around her eyes, giving her unobstructed sight. Other than that, though, not a square inch of her flesh was visible.
She was of medium height and slender, and she eased herself into my room as intrusively as a ghost. The door closed behind her, still making no noise. Just before it did so, however, I caught the briefest glimpse of similarly clad figures moving about outside. Obviously she wasn’t alone.
She had the hilt of a sword protruding from over her shoulder, indicating she had a sword strapped to her back. Of even more concern was that I was able to make out what appeared to be a dagger in her right hand. If she was coming toward me with that, I wasn’t about to simply lie there and let her gut me in my “sleep.”
She paused several feet away, afforded me a brief glance, looked around, and obviously didn’t find what she was seeking. I remained still. With any luck, she’d be gone in no time.
But then she took another look at me, and stared more fixedly. Naturally she would. The odds were that she’d never seen anyone (or anything, for that matter) quite like me before. Silently she approached. She then crouched down, tilting her head. Clearly she was trying to get an even better look at me. It was really quite remarkable. Were I not looking right at her, albeit with a very narrow field of vision, I would not have known she was there at all. Her stealth was masterly, and I found myself more interested in knowing where she’d learned to move like this than in discovering why she was here.
And then, to my utter astonishment, she came in behind me and began to run her fingers along my body. I thought she was searching me for weapons at first, but no. She was probing my muscles, my flesh. She was panting softly, as if receiving increasing sexual gratification from doing so. And she murmured to herself. Even though her voice was muffled by her mask, I could still discern what she was saying.
“His face, effulgent, glowing, shining, unique in all the world in its singularity. I look upon it and my breast heaves, a soaring, crashing wave like the floating zephyr of an evening star. A woman’s head upon a woman’s breast is a woman placing her head upon her own breast, to be one with herself, and to know the soaring rapture of orgasmic release. But to look upon him is to look upon myself, and see the strangeness and wonder that is within me, within all women, in all the secret places above and below the world, locked within our wombs, like ripe, bursting—”