Context (54 page)

Awestruck, Tom could only follow,
carried along by the master’s spiritual strength.

And
so it continued.

Prayer-runs and walking
meditation were the extended high points of every day, along with solitary
sessions in the Great Prism.

Every morning, Tom awoke,
strangely disconnected as though his spirit was elevated beyond his body. And
he would greet his brothers-in-enlightenment with joyful bows, unable to
comprehend the wonderful Fate which had brought him here.

Sometimes
at night, though he was filled with calm, Tom felt beyond the need for sleep.

Then, he might walk around the
Outer Court, performing his strange-attractor meditation again while the
guardian-monks on night duty watched approvingly. Or he would go outside, for a
second run among the shrine-dotted prayer-routes.

But sometimes another spirit
would move him, and he would run silently along deserted, shadow-shrouded
commercial runnels, where the few passers-by ignored him.

And once, taking a shortcut
through the Couloir d’Amori, beyond the membrane-curtained chambers where
reclining half-clad women waited, he saw two elder monks, conversing
cheerfully, exiting an establishment.

Moderation,
Tom told himself.
Another
approach to the Way.

It did not matter that he, like
every novitiate, was denied contact with the opposite sex. That was part of the
austere discipline, the
shugyo.

His life was as frugal as the
diet which was so carefully prepared in the monastery’s kitchen-lab.

But
that night he dreamed of his first days in Palace Darinia, after the great
crackling vibroblade had shorn off his arm, yet he performed his duties in a
strange euphoria.

‘That’ll be the implant,’
his new friend Jak had told him.

The implant which numbed the
pain, until Tom himself cut it out.

They
gathered in the Outer Court for Brother Alvam’s triumph. The atmosphere was a
strangely expectant mix of calm and tension: monks of all ranks waited in
serried rows, murmuring to each other, waiting for the great bronze door to
swing open.

‘Soon,’ whispered Yerwo.

And then indeed it opened, and
guardian-monks bowed as Brother Alvam, glistening with sweat, half-ran,
half-stumbled inside, finally reaching his goal. For the ninety-ninth
successive day, he had completed a ninety-nine klick ultra-endurance
novadecenovena
devotion, and now he was spent.

Then every monk present,
including the Abbot, bowed in unison, while Brother Alvam could only stand in
acceptance, unable to return the gesture.

Senior monks began the Chant of
Stepwise Triumph, ancient verses filling the air like incense smoke, while
novitiates smiled in wonder.

Then medic-priests took gentle
hold of Brother Alvam’s stick-like arms—for he was emaciated, fat and muscle
burned away to sinew and bone by the ongoing strength of his spiritual will—and
guided him towards the recovery chapel.

‘Did you see?’ Yerwo continued to
stare after Alvam was no longer in sight. ‘Did you?’

‘Yes, my brother.’

If only I could...

For the monk’s exhausted frame
had glowed with an inner light, eyes on fire, enlightenment shining like a nova
in his soul.

Someday...

It
was another night run, solo, and he passed through a grey-lit tunnel which
seemed oddly familiar. Before one establishment a golden-winged holoimage
fluttered virtual wings, and Tom slowed down to walking pace.

‘Tom?’ A big bulky figure,
wrapped in a cape, stood below the holo. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, my brother.’

‘I’m not your... You remember me,
right? Kraiv.’

‘Of course.’

‘We...’ The big man paused as a
slender woman, prematurely silver hair visible around the edges of her cape’s
hood, came through the archway behind him. ‘Draquelle and I are leaving soon.
My indenture ended two tendays ago.’

‘We waited, Tom,’ said Draquelle.
‘The monks wouldn’t let—’

But Tom was walking past.

‘Tom? It’s half a Standard Year
since we’ve seen you. Aren’t you even going to—?’

Time to move.

Half a Standard Year?

He broke into a run.

But I’m so far from
enlightenment.

Ran faster.

But
then Tom’s brother novitiate was expelled from the monastery.

It was with a genuine sorrow that
two guardian-monks led Yerwo from the dorm into an isolation cell. Yerwo,
shocked and bewildered, began to shake with resentment, but one of the monks
applied a subtle wrist-lock and led him out.

Tom could only watch.

He was not the only one. In the
cloister’s shadows, Brother Thrumik stood silently, his expression invisible in
the gloom.

‘Sir?’ Tom addressed him quietly.
‘Is there not some mistake?’

Thrumik shook his head.

‘Poor Yerwo,’ he said, ‘is not up
to the rigours of advanced devotion.’

Tom remembered the
physiologist-monks’ frowns.

‘Sadness.’

‘Indeed, my young
brother-in-enlightenment.’

It was a rare compliment, that
form of address from an elder monk, and Tom bowed deeply. When he straightened,
he had little memory of why he was standing here.

‘You should sleep now,’ said
Thrumik.

‘Thank you, Master.’ Tom bowed
again.