From the branch Samana and Tansid carefully fashioned a selection of long bamboo needles. They polished them until they were not much thicker than a human hair, but sharper and more resilient than the finest bronze.
An air of tension and expectation pervaded the serenity of the temple community. The laughter and high spirits of the apsaras were muted.
Whenever Tansid looked at Taita it was with awe tinged with something close to pity. Samana spent most of the waiting days with him, fortifying
him for the ordeal that lay ahead. They discussed many things, and Samana spoke with the voice and the wisdom of Kashyap.
At one point Taita broached a subject that had long occupied him: 'I perceive that you are a Long Liver, Samana.'
'As are you, Taita.'
'How is it that so few of us survive to an age far in excess of the rest of humanity?' he asked. 'It is beyond nature.'
'For myself, and others such as the Abbot Kashyap, it may be the manner of our existence, what we eat and drink, what we think and believe. Or perhaps that we have a purpose, a reason to continue, a spur to goad us on.'
'What of me? Although I feel I am a stripling, compared to you and the abbot, I have far surpassed the lifespah of most other men,' Taita said.
Samana smiled. 'You are of good mind. Until this time the power of your intellect has been able to triumph over the frailty of your body, but in the end we must all die, as Kashyap has.'
'You have answered my first question, but I have another. Who has chosen me?' Taita asked, but he knew that the question was doomed to remain unanswered.
m, Samana flashed a sweet, enigmatic smile and leant forward to place a nger on his lips. 'You have been selected,' she whispered. 'Let that suffice.' He knew that he had pushed her to the limit of her knowledge: that was as far as she could go.
They sat together and meditated, for the rest of that day and half of the night that followed, on all that had passed so far between them.
Then she took him to her bed-chamber and they slept entwined, like a mother and child, until dawn filled the chamber with light. They rose imd bathed together, then Samana took him to an ancient stone building in a hidden corner of the gardens that Taita had not visited before.
Fansid was already there. She was busy at a marble table that stood in the centre of the large central room. When they entered she looked up at them. 'I was preparing the last of the needles,' she explained, 'but I will leave if you wish to be alone.'
'Stay, beloved Tansid,' Samana told her. 'Your presence will not disturb us.' She took Taita's hand and led him about the room. 'This building was designed by the first abbots in the beginning time. They needed good light in which to operate.' She pointed to the large open windows set high in the walls above them. 'On this marble table more than fifty generations of abbots have performed the opening of the Inner
Eye. Each one was a savant, the term by which we describe the initiates, those who are able to see the aura of other humans and animals.'
She pointed out to him the writing carved into the walls. 'Those are the records of all who have gone before us throughout the centuries and the millennium. Between ourselves there must stand no reservation. I will give you no false assurances - you would see through any attempt I made to deceive you before I could speak the first word. So I tell you truly that, under the tutelage of Kashyap, I attempted to open the Inner Eye four times before I was successful.'
She pointed to the most recent set of inscriptions. 'Here you can see my attempts recorded. Perhaps at first I lacked skill and dexterity.
Perhaps my patients were not far enough along the right-hand path. In one instance the result was disastrous. I warn you, Taita, the risks are great.' Samana was silent for a while, ruminating. Then she went on, 'There were others before me who failed. See here!' She led him to a set of time-worn, lichen-coated inscriptions at the furthest end of the wall.
'These are so old that they are extremely difficult to decipher, but I can tell you what they record. Almost two thousand years ago a woman came to this temple. She was a survivor of an ancient people who once lived in a great city named Ilion beside the Aegean Sea. She had been the High Priestess of Apollo. She was a Long Liver, as you are. Over the centuries, since the sack and destruction of her city, she had wandered the earth, garnering wisdom and learning. The abbot at that time was named Kurma. The strange woman convinced him that she was a paragon of the Truth. In that way she induced him to open her Inner Eye. It was a success that astonished and elated him. It was only long after she had left the temple that Kurma was overtaken by doubts and misgivings. A series of terrible events occurred that made him realize she might have been an impostor, a thief, an adept of the left-hand path, a minion of the Lie. At length he discovered that she had used witchcraft to kill the one who had been originally chosen. She had assumed the murdered woman's identity and been able to cloak her true nature sufficiently to dupe him.'
'What became of this creature?'
'Generation after generation of the abbots of the goddess Saraswati have tried to trace her. But she has cloaked herself and disappeared.
Perhaps by this time she is dead. That is the best we can hope for.'
'What was her name?' Taita asked.
'Here! It is inscribed.' Samana touched the writing with her fingertips, 'She called herself Eos, after the sister of the sun god. I know now that it
was not her true name. But her spirit sign was the mark of a cat's paw.
Here it is.'
