Raven's Warrior (4 page)
As the door closed behind them, the woman and child gathered all their healing skills, and the black bird flew up to join the darkness.
The pale monk lay still but for the occasional cough and the shallow rising and falling of his powerful chest. Selah sat quietly and watched her mother work. In stoic concentration she went about the business of healing. Infection, blood loss, and trauma were the enemies she fought against, but it was the powerful love of a woman and her daughter that kept the monk on this earthly plain.
Over the next year Selah grew in loves complete embrace. Her father took well to life on the small farm. For him the work was joyous and productive. Even the most mundane tasks were undertaken with nurturing in mind. The love between her parents was as vast and solid as the temple's mighty mountainous foundation. Her father didn't talk much about his former temple life, but by moonlight he would look toward distant peak and remember.
The army that had ravished it did not pursue him. Perhaps they thought that all twenty-one monks had perished, perhaps they thought no surviving monk would continue to live in the temple's mountain shadow, or perhaps they were just smart enough to let sleeping dogs lie. The monk that knew the secrets of blade making, and the protector of the monastery's ancestral wisdom, was now just a simple family man.
For the next eleven years they thrived. Selah, her mother, and Mah Lin lived life with the hearts understanding how strong the bonds of love are, and how fleeting life is. They knew that even if a person lives a hundred years, it is still just a blink of an eye to the mountain. As a family every minute of every day was lived and loved to the fullest.
The rain was gently misting on the day father and daughter returned happily from their labor in the fields. They worked well together and shared a love for all that was nature. They spoke on this day about the changing weather and the coming of the new season. As they crested the last hill before their home, they both fell silent. Selah felt the blood drain from her face and her stomach shrivel.
At a glance they knew that their life had changed. As they neared the house their pace quickened to a run. From a distance they saw that the smoke that always rose up at cooking time was absent. They saw that in its place at the chimney's mouth perched the raven. Both knew even before they opened the door and saw her still form on the floor, their time here as three had ended.
She lay where she had fallen, pale to the eye, and cold like marble to the touch. Her beauty lingered long after her life force had departed. Even in death her features were calm, and serenity was her last expression. Mah Lin knelt beside his love, closed her eyes, and kissed her one last time. Selah opened the fingers of her mother's cool hand and lifted from them the leaves of a freshly picked plant. It was woad, the flowering shrub that boils down to the richest blue. Selah was surprised because her mother had said nothing about dyeing any silk, she looked sadly at the dark green leaves and bright yellow flowers, closed her eyes, and inhaled their gentle fragrance deeply.
Death had been kind and swift. She had not suffered or lingered. Instead she had crossed from the world of flesh in one seamless step. Selah's father said that her heart had just stopped beating, and her spirit had left in a single breath. Perhaps it was because she had put so much of her heart into the healing on that night twelve years ago. In less than a heartbeat, three had become two. For father and daughter their strength and their hope rested in the fact that they still had each other.
Together they buried her by the roots of a young oak tree. Despite Death's kindness, the pain of her passing cut into Mah Lin and Selah like a razor sharp knife.
That evening, they knelt by the earthen hearth of the cooking fire. The orange flames from aromatic wood leapt and licked up the sides of the metal cooking pot. The water boiled fiercely as it changed from liquid to vapor. For a long time there was only silence. Eventually Mah Lin asked Selah what she saw. “The elements, father,” was her reply. “Yes, daughter,” was his.
They stood up together and reached into the fire for a burning bough. They paused on the way out only long enough to toss it gently on the empty bed. The horse had already been hitched to the wagon and the temple library already loaded. Mah Lin had drawn his sword and sliced furiously at his long dark hair. The blade was soon cutting across scalp and the blood flowed freely but unnoticed. By the time his head was shorn and shaven, the flames had filled the house and poured out and upwards from every opening.
Both father and daughter moved wearily, weighed down by the pain of transition. As they turned together and began walking away, she adjusted the sword on his back, much like her mother would have done. In the dancing light of the raging fire she saw the pentagram on its hilt. On each of the star s five points, a character: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood.
By the time they reached the mountain their old house glowed like a tiny ember, and their previous life had been transformed into just a memory.
Selah never questioned why or where they were going. This was not the time for talking; it was the time for her unwavering faith in her father's judgment. Dawn was breaking as they reached the base of the temple's mountain, and by mid-morning they had arrived at its blackened summit. She followed him closely with horse and cart, just as she had done with her mother many years before. Now, however, she was no longer a child, but a woman grown rich in both wisdom and beauty.
The brick and mortar that was this place lay scattered and moss covered, like the bones and armor of its dead. She held her trepidation in check and wondered if this is the only peace that war can bring. Their obedient mare had soon found water. It grazed happily in the over grass, content for now with the chance to rest. Both monk and soldier lay where they had fallen. Selah watched her father solemnly go about the business of gathering and piling the skeletal remains of his monastic brothers. Quietly she began to help him with his task.
From a respectable distance she saw her father kneel in silence beside the ragged robed bones of his abbot. To these he summoned life. With closed eyes he recalled time spent and lessons learned. Reaching into the mottled robes of the master, he removed the treasured relic he knew the abbot would have died defending. The metal shone brightly in the sunlight.
Placing the object safely beneath the folds of his tunic the priest said calmly, “The vajra, from the hands of Bodhidharma to the earliest monks of our order.” This was the connection of past with present, the object that linked steel to scroll. Seeing the unspoken question in his daughter's eyes he offered more. “The vajra, the library, and the sword â The spirit, the mind, and the body.” His role and responsibility within the temple had not ended with the destruction of its mighty walls, it had merely been transformed.
Together on this holy ground they built a crypt of blackened stone like a monument within a monument, and when they had finished Mah Lin began the prayers for the dead. The father and husband that she had known was a good and formidable man, but here at this destroyed temple she saw his strength gather to unearthly proportions. She remembered the monk that mother and child had found broken and lifeless, and now witnessed him emerging from the ashes of these sacred ruins like the phoenix of ancient tales.
Mah Lin continued his search of the mountaintop looking for something other than bone or fragment. He chose carefully from the armor parts and weapons strewn about, some still protecting a long perished body part and some still held tightly in the grip of the dead, as the load of humble cart steadily increased. On the eve of the third day, Mah Lin found what he had been seeking. It lay underneath a fallen shield, undisturbed by the passage of time. The monk picked it up and cleaned it off with the sleeve of his tunic.
He called to Selah to show her what he held in the palm of his outstretched hand. She gazed in wonder at the beautiful artifact, small but substantial, lovingly crafted, and timeless. On the dull bronze pentagon lay the raised metallic image of the imperial dragon. A round hollow lay clutched in its five-clawed talon, and within this circular well a delicate needle lay suspended and precisely balanced. As her father offered this dragon to the four corners of the world, the needle moved quickly around to keep its original place.
“Selah, we have new purpose, and now direction,” were the words of the powerful monk, the action of a loving father was an embrace. Only then, within the safety of his protective arms, did her tears fall freely upon his dusty shirt. When the storm of her grief had passed, he stroked her shimmering hair and gently whispered as only a father could, “Selah, we will go now, it is complete.”
So it was that they traveled on, their cart carrying the relics of this consecrated place, and their hearts carrying the remnants of their former peaceful lives. As they descended the path with the well-loaded carriage, the sharp-eyed raven took flight and followed, calling out their progress and championing their renewal. Mah Lin knew that the second pair of eyes that had been watching them secretly would also give voice to their actions.
He understood that information would flow upward from hidden sentry to high commander just as surely as the mountain stream flows down from savage peak to gentle lowland.
By day and by night they traveled, stopping briefly to cook and eat what sustenance their route graciously provided. Moving relentlessly from north to southeast, Mah Lin would consult the spinning needle and study carefully one of the oldest parchment maps saved from the destroyed temple.
Over the course of their steady progress, Mah Lin explained that not all the manuscripts they carried were from his former monastery. Some, like the map they now followed, came from a much older place, and it was to this place, the place of all origins, that they were heading. It was this sanctuary that would provide them with the safety and protection that they needed, and within these walls of security they would once again build life.
Selah was very much like their dependable load-pulling horse. She never complained about the length or severity of their journey, or even questioned its nebulous purpose. She thought sometimes about the life they had left behind, but realized that they were not so much leaving something as moving towards something else. Her heart knew that the steady pace they had set had both direction from the delicately spinning needle, and purpose reflected in the calm and serious expression worn on the face of her father.
Mah Lin spoke of a world in a state of chaos, like the destruction from the heavens that brings the hail, the rain, and the winds. He spoke of it churning slowly and grinding steadily in its natural and unstoppable rotation. He explained that the place they now sought was a place of refuge from this tempest. The ancient of ancient temple site was the calm within this storm, the eye of this ever-expanding hurricane.
The star filled night sky covered the two travelers like a simple beggar's bowl. As Selah's eyes grew heavy her father's grew more vigilant. He had heard the diminutive sounds of snapping twigs and the slight rustle of leaves in the underbrush. Now he sat calmly waiting, while his skilled hands comfortably touched the familiar wooden sword handle.
From the darkness stepped the huddled and half-hidden figure of an old man. Like a moth attracted by the fire's light he sought to share a morsel, and perhaps some idle nighttime conversation. In truth he desired only the basic warmth of human contact. He was garbed in blackened tattered robes that cried out loudly of neglect, and his head moved coal black eyes from side to side to pierce the darkness. As a skinny arm reached carefully for the hot tea offered, Selah thought about the raven that followed them.
The monk and the beggar shared the fire's comfort and talked well into the quiet night and long after she had fallen asleep. Their tone was for the most part serious, punctuated in places by honest laughter. He was gone by the time she awoke, so she did not see his parting gesture. The beggar had solemnly dropped a large rock onto the skirt of the dying fire. Neither did she know that the dropping of the rock coincided perfectly with the falling head of a distant sentry who had just finished making his last report.
Within the moon's half cycle the end of their travels was in sight. They could see from the sparse lowland an oasis of lush green rising up before them in the distance. It stretched for miles untouched and unvisited by the few locals that lived nearby, for often a land long sacred carries within it the power to remain unmolested. The arrival of monk, woman, horse and cart, to holy ground attracted little attention, and needed no explanation.
To Selah this quiet protected area called to them, as if it had always belonged to them and them to it. As they arrived at its hub, she felt its welcoming nature. It hinted once again at security and family, even though her mother was painfully absent and terribly missed. They moved past the outer walls to the great hall, where they unloaded the weapons and armor from the cart of their tired horse.
The site was ancient, but not in tremendous disarray. It was simpler than most temple structures, more home than place of worship. She would start with a good cleaning. Within only a few months her work and womanly touch began to breathe vitality here once again. A small but adequate garden was soon planted and tended. Wild game was abundant, and before long there were cattle grazing and hens nesting or scratching and pecking as they roamed freely around the place.
Her father renewed his vows of priesthood. Martial training occurred daily, as did the study of the ancient manuscripts that had found their resting place within the structures simple library. All daily chores were done in a way that enhanced his strength and fighting skills, and by evening's lamplight he poured over the written mysteries of age-old documents.
Like her mother before her, it was not long before Selah was collecting and categorizing the medicinal plants growing in this serene location. Also, very much like her mother, she had begun to feed mulberry leaves to the worms, and spin, dye, and weave their silken bounty. Her father meanwhile seemed more focused than ever.