He answered my bewildered look with another short explanation that was not much of an answer at all. “The vajra mudra transforms ignorance into wisdom and symbolizes the five elements: earth, water, wood, fire, and metal.” I accepted his request that each day following the physical movements of the Vajra Fist, I continue in darkness the quiet seated practice of the mudra.
The words of my teacher were still well beyond my mind's understanding, but in the monk and his daughter my faith was now unwavering, and I would do my best in anything that they asked of me.
The seated meditation of the vajra mudra was harder for me then the movement of the vajra fist form. But eventually and with work I became comfortable with both. As always Mah Lin knew the moment of this transition, without ceremony he passed the vajra to me, and I touched it for the first time.
I held the solid but beautifully delicate object in my hand and in my mind. It was short and heavy, double-ended, perfectly symmetric, and balanced. Its size was the length of my palm, a figure eight, like the symbol of infinity. It felt familiar, the echo of a distant memory. I knew it was a sacred object of symbol and ritual, but I was already in motion. I had a fighter's knowledge and a pugilist's mind. Many times for sport and money I had held a weapon like this, I knew well the feel of a caestus strapped into my hand. But this was not strapped, it was free, and I could pass it hand to hand. It moved my body like lightning and made my fist as hard as diamond, and I thought then that they had named it well.
Mah Lin said nothing but allowed me to move as I felt. When I was finally spent, Mah Lin said, “You move well, but a striking tool was considered by the monk who carried it only the basest of its properties. In the hands of healer it is a tool of massage,” and he bid me to push against my muscles and source out any pain. Mah Lin made a motion like striking and suggested a beating rhythm. “Light now, every day a little stronger, for health,” he said. “An instrument of healing is a much more worthy purpose than a weapon of destruction.”
He held out his hand and I gave it back. He drew fresh breath and released his mind from the strict channel of rational thought. It swirled and tumbled over time and place like a mythic river. It flowed freely southward from the cold homeland of Thor to the kingdom of the ancient Aryans, where the northern god was embraced, altered, and released into the world. The mind of the monk surged eastward, tracing the thunder god's course, as he streamed out over vast distance and desert sand, only to spill and gather in the lush and fertile valleys of the vast southern continent. The monk saw the northern lightning bearer take root there and transform once more. He saw him rising with hands that reached to heaven, remade as mighty Indra, âthe wielder of the thunderbolt.' As the speed of turbulent thought slowed to pools of quiet reflection, he saw this wielder carried northward across the roof of the earth by the Bodhidharma himself, and settle here, reborn now, as the guardian Vajrapani.
The glint of the metal vajra caught my eye as the monk smiled and bid me, “Take it.” As I reached again it was not there. I could feel only its lightest touch against my wrist, and then with only the slightest of his movement, the pain came. It made my body shift, and Mah Lin followed and interpreted these shifts like the reading of manuscript. From wrist to elbow, shoulder to neck, and then down again to wrist. He controlled my movements both offensive and defensive over the entire expanse of the forge. The harder I tried to retrieve it the more intense the painful lesson got.
Mah Lin pressed or pulled me at will with never anything more than the strength required to comfortably shake hands. He, finally tired of this sport, released me. “The real martial power of the bolt lies in the skill of softness coupled with the knowledge of healer. The full power of the timeless vajra, however, lies only within the mind of the enlightened.” In the darkness of the cavern, Mah Lin left me to nurse my aching limbs and injured pride. He bid me only “breathe deeply and grow quiet,” and left me to myself.
The monk strode through the raging water of the falls without slowing and burst into the bright open sunlight. Suddenly his vision was pulled skyward by the distant cry of a bird of prey. On high, two mighty eagles crashed together. With talons locked they began the dangerous free-falling spiral of their courtship ritual. The priest watched the speed of their earthbound plummet increase and their wing tips trace the graceful outline of the double helix, the timeless pattern of life. Mere seconds from earthly impact they broke apart to climb and begin their mating ritual anew.
Mah Lin contemplated the mystical divine energy of the universe itself. He knew that Arkthar and the symbolic metal thunderbolt were also joined, locked, and entwined. He understood that both had somehow plummeted through vast distance and far place, falling and for now intact, through the ascending layers of history, legend, religion, and myth.
She had wandered for months through the blind madness that took her mind whenever it desired. Her gnarled fingers clutched at her bag of bones and tortoise shells as if its touch might keep her sane, but it did not. She no longer controlled her walks between the world of spirit and the world of flesh. Visions emerged unbidden, reflected in full moon's light by the shattered mirror of what was once a healthy mind. She could not remember clearly what she had seen and from what she had escaped.
The old one ate when she remembered and that was inconsistently. When her mind was lucid she picked the roots and berries of the wilderness. Safely stowed within her bag, she would find them later, and devour them hungrily. She was grateful that at least her bag had somehow retained its power. The steady supply of refuse from the marching soldiers was no more, and so her body withered. What was consistent was the need to put distance between her and them, and this burning need to be far away from the commander and the cold north region. From north to south blew the winds that filled her ragged sails.
The oracle moved like a strange animal, from hamlet to house with little rhyme and no reason. She would on occasion be asked to divine, but since her night in the commander's tent she could not see clearly in any direction, and so no coins would come her way. She had assumed the habit of looking to the sky, and searching every bird that flew there. The one she sought was oily black, but it did not fly above her.
He was a creature living and moving on the instincts of his kind. The beggar did not rave, nor was he mad or possessed. He was workmanlike as he went about his business. He traveled mostly at night, for the stars gave him comfort and direction. Patiently and methodically he moved from south to north, and moving as a bird flies, he followed a long dead trail that he saw from his great height.
He avoided the society of men as much as he could, not because he hated them, but because their world and their way was simply not his. His way was the way of forest paths and meadow streams, or the way of clouds that cross the sky. He knew where he was going, but paused occasionally searching for her among the shadows. He at least was not among the lost.
Long before he saw the twinkling firelight, he smelled the smoke and heard her howls rise up into the heavens. She was astonished when he came upon her, relieved that her cries had finally drawn him from the skies. They sat with few words, and on her fire he cooked a meal for her that warmed and nourished her fragmented mind. She had settled now that she had eaten, and looked at him anew, and wondered how he came.
She saw the feathered rags that adorned him, and thought that his plumage was the darkest of his kind. She wanted to reach out and touch, but she dared not take the chance that he would fly away. He offered her a warm twig tea which she held between her palms and sipped. “You have seen much old one,” he said gently, and was warmed by her toothless smile and eyes that sparkled almost human. “It is time to let it go,” he soothed, “You have given freely of your gift.” “It is gone now,” she answered, not sure if this was good or bad. “I saw too much.”
With a slow deep breath the beggar answered, “If men could see their fate, they would not rise from their beds.” The beggar looked deeply into eyes almost blind with cataracts and said lovingly, “You have seen enough.”
In stillness and at peace she rested and sat quietly by the dying fire. At half-moon's highest point, the beggar stood. He arranged and smoothed his ragged plumage, as the oracle watched and wondered if she could make him stay. But she could not, for he was a wild bird, and he was free among the stars. With bowl in hand, he reached out to touch her wrinkled face, and then in an instant he was gone. He disappeared into the dark night, yet she had not seen him fly away.
Alone once more, she thought of looking up into the blue-black sky to see if she could catch another glimpse. She rose with a mind as clear as crystal, and to no one but herself she whispered, “That would be foolish, for he is walking as a man.”
The rebel lay flat and still in the main square beside the ten dead that had passed over during the night. He stared upward along the barrel through cold skies at the fattened crows that circled and squawked overhead. His breathing and heartbeat slowed, and his finger squeezed the trigger of his rugged crossbow. The bolt flew upwards with a thump, and carried through and well beyond the ugly bird.
The rebel listened with closed eyes for the position of two sounds. The first was the hollow crashing of the bird; the second was the metallic thud of his returning ammunition. He rose, retrieved, and repeated the process again and again. The dead had fed the birds, and now the birds would feed the living.
Of twenty thousand men only four hundred remained, and these four hundred were more wraith than human. The everyday sounds of urban life had ceased long ago. All livestock had been consumed months prior, right down to the last emaciated horse. Conversations were rare, as speech now took the tones of whisper, and walking had regressed to an act of limp or shuffle. If black was the color of the birds of the sky, then grey was the pallor of these few men, the last of the living.
The young leader often thought of his wife and children. He pictured them in his mind's eye far away and warm. When he tried consciously to remember their faces he could not, but then a sound or smell or movement would bring their faces flooding back whole, detailed, and plump. He did not miss them and would never miss them, for that would mean wishing that they were here, and he had learned enough in his short life to appreciate even the strangest of favors.
He called to his second in command as he stood in the corner high tower and looked out at the enemy encampment. They scanned the outer plains, and as he took stock he spoke. His voice was low and gravely now, the effect of no food and little water. “This has never been a fight that we could win.” He was weak and paused for breath, “Our position is simple, we can die like animals or we can die like men. We did not choose this fight, but this at least, we can choose.”
He could hear the distant sounds of the enemy and see the disciplined structure of the foreign camps. Their dialect and manner was not so different from those of his tribe. He wondered how long people had been killing people, and wondered to himself if it would always be so. He wondered how in the equal balance of the great opposites, is war is so permanent and undying and peace so transitory and short-lived. The leader knew answers did not matter, for these were just the foolish thoughts of the dying and the soon dead.
The machines of war stood idle. The cast iron layered on the oak gateway would never yield, and against the massive walls even the trebuchets were of no use. The rebel forces had stung well and stung hard at the early attempts to breech. The enemy did not know that ammunition was scarce and that their arrow count was now merely fifty-five. It seemed to the rebel that the great commander was not really much of a military tactician at all.
Perhaps strategy was not his strength. Maybe he was the type of leader that inspires by example and charisma. The rebel studied him often from the distance. The man who had killed the bear was aloof and alone, more feared then loved. This type of officer is more likely to die at the hands of his own than those of the enemy, for the battlefield is a place of chaos and a place where any manner of dying is possible.
For the entire afternoon the rebel and his officer explored the inside of their destroyed capital. The walk was unhurried. When they found a body or part that had been missed, it was recorded for burial. This was a mission of evaluation, and it was clear that there was nothing. Everything had been consumed, if not by men then by fire. The act of walking was exhausting, and the business of appraisal was depressing. Finally like a child the rebel's chief officer sat, put head to hand, and cried.
“It is alright,” the rebel soothed, but in fact he looked around hoping that no others would see this sight. “Stop the tears you are no woman,” he said curtly, and quickly added, “I wish now that you were, to serve me in my bed and not in my battles.” They both laughed loudly at this, and, at least for now, despair flew off like a greasy crow.
“You are a good man,” the rebel said, “you have seen much, but now is the time to use fresh eyes.” He had his comrade's attention. “You have seen the stables long empty where once our mighty cavalry fed and rested. We have walked together through the empty larder where there has been nothing to fry for months, and still you have seen only what is gone, not what is left behind.” His man waited for more of an explanation.
“We have clean dry straw, and that we have in great abundance. We have the cooking oil that has been idle for far too long. We have fifty-five arrows, arrows that if aimed well can do damage. They may return to the capitol with their victory and our heads, but they will leave without the catapults, the trebuchets, and their tower. It is time again for one more night excursionâour last.”