To the High Redoubt (20 page)

“That's usual,” Arkady said, taking hold of her arm with his free hand. “Come on; I'll help you up.”

She accepted his offer in silence and made no objection when he led her back toward the chapel. “I'm…hungry,” she admitted to him as she caught the smell from his cookpot.

“So am I,” Arkady said, making sure she did not stumble on the uneven footing. “They probably have flagstones under all the wreckage. Monks usually had stone flooring in their buildings. I've never seen a monastery that didn't have stone floors.” He wanted to keep her from worrying and said whatever came into his mind as he found her the end of a bench to sit on and then set about serving both of them their food.

“Thank you, Arkady-immai.”

He took his own bowl and sank down cross-legged beside her. “I was named for my great-grandfather. The Count of our district…his great-great grandfather, that is, hired my great-grandfather from one of the lords of Novgorod. That Arkady had the reputation of keeping order, and anyone who could keep order in Novgorod, they were certain could keep order in Sól. He must have done well, because we're still the Marshalls there. Or we were, until the Margrave Fadey…” He stared down at his bowl, trying to think what his great-grandfather would say to him if he knew how his namesake had disgraced the family.

“I was named for…” She put her hand on his neck. “The feeling, the riding the wave? The bliss of being together, that is
surata
. For those who are trained as I am, it is a very good name.” She ate a few more bites. “Arkady-immai, what must you know?”

“Eventually, I must know all of it, if you want me to fight for you. Now, tell me as much as you are able.” He put his spoon into his food but did not eat.

“I've said I'm an alchemist, and that is the truth. All my life, I've been trained in the way of transformations.” She put her food aside. “That is what my father learned, and what his father before that, and so on back for nine generations. Men and women both have been trained, for the work cannot be done without both. Alchemy is the blending, and male and female are needed, and both must be skilled if the transformation is to take place.”

“Like being in the other place?” Arkady asked.

Surata nodded. “That is one thing, a relatively simple thing. Being in the other place is not difficult, and there are many with no training at all who stumble upon it. But they do not know how to use it, or how to shape it, and so it's…not useless, but it is nothing more than an interesting event, without merit or lasting value.”

“And you? What does this have to do with you?” Arkady had turned so that he could see her face in the firelight.

“There will always be darkness and light. Each depends on the other. The teachers from Cathay call it yin-yang, and those from the Land of Snows call in yab-yum. Night depends on day, and day on night. You have two faces for your Great God, haven't you—a face that is kind and one that is harsh?”

“God judges us all,” Arkady said, crossing himself.

“Not that face,” she said. “The other, the face called the Devil.” She rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her chin into her hands.

“The Devil is the adversary of God!” Arkady burst out.

“Yes. And each depends on the other. We see the difference as dark and light, and you see it as evil and good, but the underlying principle is the same.” She hesitated. “All my understanding comes from that teaching.”

“It is not the teaching of my Church,” Arkady declared. “Let's not argue about it. I will do my best to follow what you say and not dispute with you.” Out of habit, he reached for his bowl once more and ate the rest of his meal.

“Your Church distorts much,” she began, then stopped. “I'll try not to say such things, if I can.” This time she paused a little longer as she gathered her thoughts. “There are those who are born to families of the Great Teachers, the Bogar, who are especially skilled. It is our time on the Wheel to bring our experiences to the service of light. In another time, we have made great errors, and this is our way of…you would call it expiation.”

“What could a woman like you have done that would—”

“Not as I am now,” Surata interrupted him. “As I was in another life. Your Church does not teach this, does it?” She did not wait for him to explain but went on. “Here we know that each life is part of a greater chain of lives, and that the wrongs of one will be corrected in another.”

“If that's so, then your Bundhi will be a very busy fellow later on,” Arkady quipped.

“And so he will. But there are those who do not wish to remain on the Wheel, but to extinguish themselves utterly through great destruction, and the Bundhi is one such. He has chosen the way of the total darkness, and no longer accepts the balance of light and dark, but desires the triumph of darkness over all.” Tears gathered in her clouded eyes. “And for this, he causes much suffering. He does not seek the balance that governs all things, but works to end the balance forever. If he succeeds, then all is ended.”

“And you believe that you can change this?” He knew he could not keep his incredulity out of his voice. “You think that what you do, here or in the other place, can stop such things?”

“I believe that I must try to stop it. If I were one of the monks that lived here so long ago, and I had been asked to pray for the salvation of mankind, then no matter what I might think of my own worth, I would have to pray or I would not be a true monk.” She stood up abruptly. “You would not be a soldier if you were unwilling to fight.”

“Then I must not be a true soldier,” he snapped.

“You were not willing to be destroyed. That isn't fighting, that's stupidity. A good soldier retreats sometimes, doesn't he?” She reached her hands up toward the darkness. “It is so huge, and it is vain, you think, for me or for anyone to believe what we do will change anything. But when you decided not to go into battle, your men lived instead of dying. You were willing to accept the wrath of your leader in exchange for their lives. What you did changed things. You made your decision because of your knowledge. I have to do the same thing. As you learned about weapons and war, I learned about the other place and the forces of balance. Arkady-immai, if you had an arrow in your arm, you would find your chirurgeon to take it out if you could, instead of asking a boot-boy, wouldn't you?”

“The boot-boy might do a better job, knowing the chirurgeon in the Margrave Fadey's company,” Arkady said. “But yes, I would try to find someone with the knowledge needed in order to do a thing. I would not ask a shepherd to make me a bridge.”

“Then understand that my skill has come from study and with it comes…obligation.” She reached out toward him, seeking his hand with her own. “I will show you what it was like to learn and to study, and you will…sympathize with what I must do.”

“All right.” He set his bowl aside and looked for hers, noting that she had eaten almost nothing. “You said you were hungry.”

“I am, but I can't eat,” she said quietly. “You recall how you were able to go back in your memories, that time just after you bought me? Do you remember what that was like? And through that, I learned who you are?”

“I remember,” he said awkwardly.

“Then I will tell you how, and you will learn the same of me, and you will think me less a stranger than you do now.”

“You're hardly a stranger to me, Surata,” he said, laughing a little, his voice turning warm.

“But I am. You know my body and a piece of my skill, but I am foreign to you. In some ways, I will always be, but it need not be as great a gulf as it is now.”

“If you wish it,” he said, feeling doubt as he studied her face. “I pray you will not…regret it.”

“I won't,” she promised. “Build up the fire, if you will, Arkady-champion, and then I will tell you how you are to do this. Don't be afraid.”

“Me? Afraid?” Arkady boasted. “I'm a soldier, and I…” His voice changed. “And I am afraid. Any sensible soldier is afraid in battle.”

“This isn't battle,” Surata said. “How can you think that it could be when we have vanquished dragons and cages in the other place? You trusted me to be your weapon, but you cannot trust me to be myself.”

This brought him up short, and he stopped in his search for more broken benches to feed the fire in order to look at her closely. “You…you're right. You've been my weapon and you have not faltered. Now I am failing you, and that is not honorable.” The last words caught in his throat and he had to force them out.

“You're too severe,” she said gently. “If this were simply another battle, you wouldn't hesitate or have doubts, you would decide if it was reasonable to fight and then you would do your best. But I am asking you to do something you have never done before, and to go where your skill and ability cannot help you. That requires more than just courage, it takes great trust.”

“The man who fights at my back must trust me, and I must trust him,” Arkady pointed out.

“In battle, certainly, but suppose you had to go back to the battlefield afterward, to account for the dead. What of the man who goes with you then?” She took an unsteady step toward him. “Arkady-immai, you are being prudent, not cowardly.”

He put his arm around her waist to brace her. “Be careful,” he warned her, but not entirely because of the risk of tripping. “Surata, I may not be as capable as you think I am.”

“That isn't possible, Arkady-champion,” she said. “Tend to the fire. It may be a long night.”

“So it may,” he said, having no idea what he meant by his remark. He cleared a space for her by the fire and spread one of the blankets for her to sit on while he set about stacking the broken lengths of wood that long ago had been benches for the monks. As he ventured to the limits of the firelight, he saw an owl perched on the broken wall, its face perpetually indignant. Arkady had always had a fondness for owls, and he stopped working long enough to admire this particular bird until it sailed away silently into the dark.

Surata had spread out the other two blankets and had made two rough pillows of their saddlebags. She patted the blankets as Arkady added more wood to the fire. “Put your clothes here,” she said, indicating a place near her feet.

“We both need baths,” he said as he undressed. “Does that trouble you?”

“It's inconvenient, but that's all,” she said. “When we find another place with a bathhouse, or a pleasant river to wash in, we will do it.” As she said this, she began to get out of her clothes. “I am sorry that I can't see how you look, Arkady-immai. My hands tell me you are very beautiful.”

This casual comment amazed him. “What?”

“Wait,” she advised. “Shortly you'll understand.”

Chapter 11

Arkady took great care to follow Surata's instructions as exactly as possible. He rubbed her feet and legs the way she said it should be done and tried to keep his mind on what she felt instead of his own reactions. But as he moved from her knees to her thighs, it became more difficult to forget she was a woman whose body pleasured him as no other had.

“It's not wrong to think that,” she murmured as his hands grew still. “But that is not all there is to think of. You must start at the Four Petaled Center.”

Arkady's face went crimson. “Surata…”

“Think of the strength there, not just your enjoyment, and try to sense how it flows to the rest of the Subtle Body.” Her words came slowly, almost as if she were dreaming.

“But…” He looked away.

“Arkady-champion, don't deny what you feel, but don't limit it, either. Go beyond what you have known. Learn what I know.” She made a quick gesture with her hand. “Arkady-champion, there is so much more than you have let yourself know.”

Swallowing hard, he began to rub her thighs once more, all the while doing his best to recall the prayers he had learned as a child that would protect him from sin. Most of the words were jumbled and he did not find the solace in them that he once had. He ached with desire. “I…I don't know if I can…do…”

“You are not doing badly, Arkady-champion,” she whispered. “Move up, if you are troubled. Start with the Thirty-Two Petaled Center, but do not be put off by what you find there.” She reached out and put the palm of her hand to his abdomen. “It is better while we are linked.”

More than anything, he wanted to cover her with his body, to use her flesh to blot out the disturbing impressions that flitted through his mind. “I…Surata.”

“You can sense a little,” she said, softly but with great confidence. “Don't hold back from it,” she said. “Arkady-champion, there is nothing to resist.”

The palms of his hand felt…strange, as if the skin were buzzing. He found it too alien to be pleasant, but not so unfamiliar that he could not continue. Instead, he let his thoughts drift, as Surata had told him before he began. He thought of hills and the way horses moved when they trotted.

There were five naked children in the large, artificial lake, and they swam together, laughing and splashing. Most of them were no more than four, though there was one who was a trifle older than the others, and it appeared to be his job to watch the younger ones. He kept reminding them that the water was teaching them to stop struggling, and by that, overcome the trials of the world. The cool water was so unlike the heat of the sun that the younger children paid little attention to what the older one said, and let the cascades of water cool them and hold them up
.

“You see?” Surata said softly.

There was an old man, and he sat in the Virasana Posture, his body showing perfect poise. He spoke to Surata, who knelt beside him. “When the mind is steady, and the transcendent state achieved, then the lie of time becomes apparent.” Surata repeated this to her self several times, trying with a seven-year-old's concentration to grasp what her teacher had said
.