Eternity the last embrace and Death must drink its fill.”
Mah Lin listened to the raven’s call, and within the echoes of its fading cry, the priest heard much more.
The day that she had finished making her father his richly colored full silk robes marked the creation of a new weaving, a cloth long ago finished and only now begun. “Selah,” he said, “a man soon arrives. Since the beginning of time we three were woven together. Make ready the cart, and give the raven an extra tasty morsel. We must leave to collect him.” Selah was surprised by the news, but obeyed without question.
She set to her tasks with a smile, intrigued by her father’s enigmatic tone and amused that he had noticed she had taken to feeding the bird that had long claimed them as its own.
By the glow of moonlight, the battalion quietly snaked its way up the temple mountain like a great mythical beast. Some of the old veterans felt that the young general’s rise up through the ranks had been far too rapid. He was not well seasoned in battle, and the few he had fought had been little more than skirmish.
Although competent, to those that knew well the temper of war, disturbing traits had surfaced. This handsome general chose his opposition carefully. These lesser adversaries were dispatched cruelly. By taking as few risks as possible he had moved up in the military machine, for as the old ones often joked, “Ambition and avarice are easier to quietly promote than to loudly rectify.”
The emperor had learned that this monastery held the secret of the world’s finest blades. He had watched his young general test one recently acquired. The spring steel swords that were the standard issue of his troops snapped like twigs under its onslaught. Before an army of these, nothing could stand. He had given these monks the honor and opportunity of gifting their country, but citing religion, they had politely refused. Strong principle coupled with superior arms is a dangerous combination, and not one that could be allowed to survive.
The general’s past had secured his first large assignment. He knew the layout of the temple grounds. Karma—this direction had not been the intended one, yet it brought him back to this place. He knew that these monks were not a simple collection of spiritual misfits. He knew that they practiced martial arts but that their way was one of peace.
His rejection by the soft weak abbot, and the smell of the dirty boy returned vividly to his mind and vengeance ruled his judgment. He hated this place and the monks within its walls. Their piety, wisdom, and peace had long ceased to hold a place within his world. They had been given the option of life but instead chose death, and now they would taste the bitterness that faith and devotion bring.
By dawn the general and his entire battalion had taken up their position on the mountaintop. The armor of horse and rider greedily drank in the new morning rays and reflected nothing. Not a single bird sang out as five hundred heavily armed and battle seasoned soldiers waited for the order. Surprise would not be necessary for they held the overwhelming strength of number. Although a mundane operation, it would not be joyless.
The general carefully reviewed his mission one last time. He alone knew what would be done. All the monks must die, and the great library would be carried back and handed triumphantly to the emperor; extermination and presentation. With his first gesture the heavy oak wood of the temple gate was set ablaze. He smiled as the fires were lit against doors that had once been closed in his face. The smoke from the wood stacked upon them curled frantically skyward, from black to white and whiter still, until angry flames burst forth to do their work. Within the hour the protective gateway was weakened and breeched, the soldiers poured in and the slaughter began.
Not even the most battle hardened expected the resistance they met. In an instant what the general thought their strength had become their weakness. They fell by the score, cut down by monk steel like wheat in a summer’s field. They stepped and slipped on their fallen comrades pushed forward by the weight of their sheer numbers. The void left by absent birdsong was filled that morning by the nightmarish screams of the dying soldiers. Inevitably the gore robed monks began to fall, and of them, not one cried out.
He sat upon his horse and for most of the conflict stayed well back and out of harm’s way. For him appearance was everything. In the eyes of his men he must seem to be strong when he knew he was weak, he must seem to be brave when he knew he was fearful, and must seem to be clear when all thought was confusion. The steed beneath him jostled without direction as, with sword in hand, the general shouted meaningless orders to his falling soldiers.
He wore his bravado like a loud and boastful cape; a cape that he hoped hid from his men the sum of all of his fears. He was prepared for softness, but instead faced hard warriors. These men did not die like lambs, but fought with a skill that the general had never been allowed to know. Victory had become a battle of attrition.
All the monks that fell that fateful morning fought and died like true warriors, but even in the company of these heroes one monk stood above the rest. With strength, skill, and courage, this singular monk inspired his brothers throughout the battle. He held his ground on a growing pile of bodies, while the remnants of his monastic order fell one by one. Eventually, only this one still lived, and the storm of battle raged solely around him. He was the last of his order.
His silver blade flashed through flesh and sunlight, its razor edge the border of life and death.
Recognition struck like a thunder clap. He knew this monk. His features had changed little—he could still smell the dirty little boy.
Even from horseback the general had to look up at the sole survivor. The monk fought like a wild animal high upon the hill of those who had fallen under his blade. Steel moved too fast around the monk to be seen, but on the slower moving hilt of the young monk’s sword, the general glimpsed a pentagram within a circle.
The face of the monk was almost completely covered by the blood of those that had tried to take his life. The vivid colors, the smell of dying, the sounds of agony; these were memories seared into the mind of the general. But it was the eyes of the monk, eyes that spoke of true power that branded the general’s very soul.
Amid the chaos of war and destruction the general saw a man at peace. In the chilling heart of combat he witnessed monks inspired and emboldened by this man’s true courage. He saw men follow without question. No amount of blood could obscure the terrible truth: this monk was everything that he was not, and everything that he had wanted, all his life, to be.
Like a jackal he waited until the monk was fighting with the strongest and largest soldier in his command. With the monk engaged face to face with the massive soldier, horse and rider moved in quietly from behind. For the task at hand, timing was everything.
The monk continued to fight with a strength that verged on legendary. The general paused while his archers took their positions, and then he shouted the order to fire. Horse and general charged forward and upward to take the head. He moved quickly now to silence the voice of inner demons as he charged toward glory.
To the eye all three things happened at the same time. Ten arrows hit their mark, the last sweep of the falling monk’s blade cut through the huge soldier’s weapon and found the heart, and the blade of the general was launched upon its deadly journey to an unprotected neck. But at the edge of life and death, time slows and events that seem simultaneous unfold in separate clarity.
Mah Lin did not see the severed tip of the giant’s saber flying past
