“Don't worry,” he said, “like your tree you will grow strong ring by ring.” We ate lunch listening to the river's voice, and I was well content and to my surprise invigorated. After lunch, Mah Lin stood up and stretched his body like a cat. His body was as flexible as it was muscled. He sprang like an animal and his leg flashed like a whirlwind. I had seen much military training for hand-to-hand combat, but I had never seen anything like this.
The practiced movement of his art flowed like the river itself, soft yet powerful, punctuated by the savage snap of leg and limb. The hardness of his strikes was surrounded by his fluid movement, like rocks that jut from raging rapids. As I watched his saffron tunic flash and whirl in measured pace and perfect balance, I lost all sense of time. With one last mighty flurry all movement ceased, leaving only the silence of the sunny afternoon.
Back from his physical journey, he smiled in our direction. Mah Lin bent from the waist with his right fist cradled in left hand. I took this as a salute, and I mirrored it back to him. We laughed like carefree children, and he pointed to a thick oak bough that had washed ashore by the river. “Arkthar, bring the staff,” he said. Selah was clearly enjoying the show which I was soon to learn had not yet ended, and I went to fetch the long, water-heavy club of tree limb.
Mah Lin stood unmoving and of calm expression. To Selah and me he said, “An indestructible body is built upon a tranquil mind.” The monk stood with eyes closed, his outward features a true reflection of his inner serenity. Suddenly and without warning Selah took the club and swung it mightily. It cracked like a lightning strike across his chest and was broken jaggedly in two.
Reality for me was once more undone. It seemed that I saw a loving and gentle daughter try in earnest to kill her unsuspecting father. I had never seen such a powerful strike, and I had seen the battle feats of many a powerful man. As impossible as it seemed, the monk Mah Lin still stood. His features wrapped in peace and stillness. They both looked at the fear and horror written upon my face, and they laughed once more at my expense.
Mah Lin sprang once again like a large wild cat. This time he flew directly into the roaring falls. It was a leap at least the height of two tall men, and then nothing. I saw him with the vision of my own eyes instantly disappear. In this strange world I was once again lost between the real and the impossible.
To Selah this seemed nothing unusual, but I was without words. I ruminated over all that I had seen, as we walked home. Selah seemed to feel the heaviness of my thoughts and confusion, but did not want to disturb me further, and so, she too, was quiet.
By the time we reached the dwelling, she was singing sweetly and it soothed me much. I heard the raven that shared this land call me by name once more. If Mah Lin was a sorcerer, he must be a most powerful one. Selah turned to me as if she had read my thoughts, she placed her palm gently upon my healing shoulder and looked deeply into my eyes and mind.
“You must trust your heart rather than your senses sometimes,” she said. “Now be of good spirit while I finish preparing the evening meal, my father will reveal all to you in time, and know this, Arktharâyou have much to learn.”
Mah Lin returned to the house that evening, his clothes once again holding the pleasant smell of smoke. It mixed happily with the tantalizing smell of the well-cooked evening meal. I had aided Selah in its preparation, and she had guided me in the use of fragrant spices.
It was as a feast. A roasting pheasant that had been snared earlier near the oak tree was now lazily dripping fat onto a bed of green garden vegetables. I myself had fertilized the garden with the buckets of dried bat manure that she had been pleased to have me mix and cast. That such delicious vegetation came from the application of such a concoction spoke eloquently of nature's power to transform.
Mah Lin savored both the meal and the conversation as Selah told him the details of her day. They spoke in their language, and I could now hear familiar words and was, in fact, beginning to understand the root of their conversation. He was intent while listening and questioned her about details. Sometimes he would stifle a smile or try unsuccessfully to suppress his laughter.
At these points I knew they were usually discussing me, and often I found myself laughing as well. At meal's end we were all well satisfied, and Selah had placed sweet treats to steam upon the cooking stove. Mah Lin pointed to the handle on the square wooden box attached to the stove and indicated that I should work it back and forth.
This I did happily, for I craved something warm and delicious. I had watched her make these treats and imitated her motion at the box. As I pumped the handle, the heated embers glowed from below, redder and hotter at each pull and push. Even the simplest things, when never before seen are fascinating, and this machine was a puzzle to me. Mah Lin watched me carefully as I played the wooden handle in and out, and he stopped Selah from interrupting my activity even though the dessert was surely done by now.
As a boy in the forge of a weapon maker, I had worked the bellows. It was day-long toil for a morsel at daylight's end. This device, however, was not the same. The bellows of my past world work like the lungs of a strong soldier blowing through a reed at the base of fire's heat. It is a panting climb to glow the iron, a huffing and puffing. This simple kitchen device, however, was radically different and far superior.
This bellows did not pump out air by panting. The air stream was continuous; it was forced out on the push stroke and exhaled steadily on the handle's pull stroke as well. Constant air must mean more heat. Intrinsically, I knew that in the working of metal, if heat increased so too did possibility. I began to open up the lid of the wooden box to see its inner workings, and then remembering where I was, looked for permission from Selah and Mah Lin. They nodded for me to continue. I explored with the wonder of childhood and saw that its functional beauty lay in its simplicity.
Pushing and pulling I studied its wooden mechanism. I saw the inner flaps open as the air was pulled in, and close as the air was pushed out. I saw the piston lined with a layer of feathers that sealed it and helped it slide. It was a wooden box of genius, so basic and yet so profound.
Selah rose quickly and dragged me away from my fascination in an effort to save the sweet treats, which were by now quite overcooked. Despite their dark appearance, Mah Lin ate them with zest and abandon. Only when we had finished the last treat and washed it down with tea, did he speak.
“Thank you, Selah, for the meal,” and to me he spoke with the sound of satisfaction in his voice. “You perceive well, Arkthar. Without that simple machine there would be no Five Element Sword.” He paused now to collect his next expression, always careful to speak with accuracy and truth. “Before you learn the art of steel, you must understand the powerful softness of the moving air.
Only by the steady and constant air from the double pump bellows can a forge reach the temperature needed for iron to give birth to steel.” Mah Lin sipped and continued, “Bellows of this type have humbly served in our kitchens and in our forges for more than a thousand years.” After his last sip of now cool tea he added, “Since the time of the First Emperor.” He was lit from within by his reflections of mankind's long history of invention and ingenuity.
“How interesting it is that the greatest achievements of human beings are built directly upon the modest and humble accomplishments of those that have gone before them.”
I spent each morning happily huddled over the library documents, with Selah by my side instructing me and answering my many questions. The mysteries of reading and writing were slowly beginning to unfold, as the pages of my past life were quickly beginning to dry, fade, and crumble. Gradually and steadily the words of the ancients began to replace my life-long ignorance.
We worked and we walked upon the land. It was a land that I was beginning to know. After our chores, Selah the healer directed me in the slow breathing movements of dao yin, a series of exercises whose name she said meant âguiding and stretching.' As I practiced each movement I felt myself sinking deeper from the surface of my raging past.
At the end of my lesson, I felt rejuvenated and at peace. My teacher smiled openly at my calm demeanor, and said cryptically, “If practiced faithfully, the road of dao yin may one day lead to purity of heart.” “Purity of heart?” I remembered my first kill, and how I had held his, briefly beating within my hands. “Selah, you don't know my life.”
In the serene afterglow of physical expression, I wondered how so small a woman could strike so hard, and I wondered about the monk that could vanish into the afternoon air. Long I pondered the idea that the foundation of an indestructible body is built upon the bedrock of a tranquil mind, and I enjoyed life and all its simple blessings.
The world of nature had now become both my friend and my sanctuary. I often looked for the raven who shared our food and our existence. The radiant blue silk robe that was the combined effort of worm and woman gave me great comfort. It was cool in heat, and warm in breeze.
We neared the massive oak and beneath it we could see Mah Lin sitting peacefully, as was his way. Selah smiled and explained, “Today my father will show you a new exercise.” She stopped and looked at a small spring flower, then broke the stem and put it in her hair. She was radiant, and with great effort I did not stare, but listened as she said, “The beginning of true power starts with the discipline of mind and breath.”
As we arrived at the oak, Mah Lin walked toward us. He was inclined sometimes to use few words, and now laid hands on me to adjust my position. He faced me toward the tree and bent my legs with a nudge of his knee. A palm on my lower belly and the motion of the bellows indicated that I was to breathe from there. He raised my arms in front of my body and rounded them as if I were holding the great trunk of the oak. Again he reminded me, with gesture of the bellows, that I should use my abdomen to draw breath.
Standing back he looked at my position as if I were a statue he was sculpting. He seemed satisfied after a few more small adjustments, and indicated to me the oak and its connection to my mind. A finger up and he said, “the heavens,” a finger downâ “the earth,” a slap to my belly and, “Arkthar.” His last adjustment was to my lips, as he turned them up to smile, and his last word before he and Selah ate lunch and watched me stand, was “Chi.”
At the end of twenty minutes my legs trembled. My arms held in front were heavy beyond description. The earth's pull was the constant hammering force that would build my body to the strength of steel. “Enough for today,” he said. “Every day, ring by ring, you will grow stronger.” As I dropped my tired arms and moved my shaking legs, he said, “Let the oak tree be your teacher.”
We three walked on now, and I ate the remains of the lunch that in kindness they had saved for me. Mah Lin and I sat by the thunderous falls and with a sweeping gesture of his hand he said again the word “Chi.” Selah reached for a small stick and scratched its character into the dirt. It was composed of two parts she explained.
The middle was the character for a grain of rice. This was surrounded above and to the right by a shape that she said meant steam or vapor. It danced on the earth, and I took the stick and wrote it anew. “Draw from here,” Mah Lin said and indicated his belly. In truth I did not yet make the connection between steamed rice and this mysterious energy, and finally Mah Lin looked to his daughter and said, “I will show him.”
She brought me to my feet and put me to stand. “Tighten,” she said gently. With a wide slow gathering motion he seemed to collect the energy from all around us, and then in an instant he released it. From a distance no longer than a finger, his palm clapped against my mid-section in a flash. I heard the air empty from my lungs as I felt both my feet take leave from the ground. There was at first only darkness and then the flooding of pain and light.
I lay on my back a good distance from where I had been standing. Mah Lin and Selah hovered over me, concern written on their faces. Mah Lin was contrite, but I knew, that in truth he had not issued anywhere near all his power. In time and by degree I came back to myself. I came first to my knees, then sitting, and finally back to my feet. I could say only one word, and that was “Chi.”
“Yes,” they said in unison and then came the relieved laughter of two who now knew that I would be all right.
All afternoon we three lingered by the falls. The mood was spirited and joyful. I reflected upon my present situation, and the beauty that cradled me, and wondered perhaps if I had died somewhere along my desert journey and had not realized my demise. Perhaps this was paradise, though truly I could not think of anything I may have done to earn it.
In heart I was completely grateful, and in body and mind completely alive. I remember the sword cutting my bonds of iron, and Mah Lin's first words to me, “From today I am your owner. Your life sentence has just begun.”
I had never before been taken in war, I had never before been owned by another, I had never before been a slave, and, in truth, I had never before now been so free.
There were many things in my past life as a soldier that I had never experienced, and there were many experiences in that life that I wished I had never known. I had previously kept only the company of assassins, mercenaries, and murderers. Some were good soldiers, all were rough men, and I was harder than most. I had never regretted killing, but now in this home and ancient temple, my understanding of life's true value was changing.
A warrior's armor is designed by purpose to keep things out. As I looked down at the light and comfortable robe of scholar that I now so proudly wore, I realized that it helped me greatly to take things in. Ironically, the blue color of its fibers is boiled from the very plant that paints my skin for battle. Within cocoons the worms transform, and now like them, metamorphosis was upon me.