that twisted up the valley floor. His gaze followed it upwards, scenting the breeze as he did so: blackpowder and burning wood. He knew what he would see there.
The monastery, surrounded by its forest of jupe trees.
The building was aflame.
As Che looked on, flashes of fire sped towards the monastery from different directions: artillery shooting through the dusk to impact against the buildings in gouts of flame and debris; and snipers, armed with long-rifles, firing down from high bluffs over to the west.
The flames were catching hold fast. Silhouetted against their light, Commandos were moving by platoon into the forest of jupes. A bell was ringing.
Che's stomach growled in hunger. It was the memory of mealtimes spent here, the same bell calling out for supper.
*
Clouds scraped over the mountain peaks, blotting out the stars one by one.
Che paused at the edge of the jupe forest.
In the shadows beneath the trees men fought in grim struggle. He saw firelight flash against blades, and a black-robed figure cutting his way through a line of Commandos, as their lieutenant yelled for them to close in and take him down. To the left, towards where he judged the main gateway to be, he could hear a larger action taking place. Steel clashed above the uglier clatter of rifle shots. Men hollered.
He flinched as a great explosion tore half the evening gloom away, and looked up in time to see the upper portion of the tower – where he knew old Osh to live – disintegrating in a cloud of dust. Someone screamed in the distance; from pain or rage, he couldn't tell.
Che retreated from the treeline. His eyes refused to consider any more of the destruction. He stared fixedly at the ground before his feet, lit occasionally enough to show clumps of grass, stripes of shadow. He skirted the treeline, came to the stream again.
Che turned and followed it upwards, leaving the monastery behind him.
Soon he saw it: the little shack of the Seer.
'Hello, Che,' said the Seer, in Trade, squatting in front of the shack.
At least Che's name had been real, while he had lived here, even if he had not been.
He stopped. He looked for weapons on the ancient Seer, or any sign of Rshun lurking inside the hut.
'How are you?' asked the Seer, his tone gentle.
Another whumpf of artillery sounded from below. The ground trembled beneath Che's feet. It shook him to answer though his response was a mere shrug.
Che didn't really know how he was.
The ancient farlander nodded, and patted the grass by his side. Che hesitated, as though the grass itself might contain hidden dangers. Delicately, he sat down beside the old Seer.
Together, they faced the battle below.
'We wondered where you had vanished to,' said the Seer in his thin, weak voice. 'But now we know.'
A tightness in Che's chest. 'It was not of my own choosing,' he said.
'I don't expect that it was. I would have seen it in you, if you had been the type for easy betrayal.'
Che dropped his gaze.
'I do not judge you,' said the Seer, patting his hand. 'We do as we must do. But tell me, please – how have you been, since we last sat and talked like this?'
Che scratched at his neck. He considered what to say to this man he had known so well in another life. For a moment, Che wondered what he was doing here, talking with him like this so casually, like friends. But then he heard the crack of shots fired below, and he remembered why he was here, and not there.
'When I lived here,' he said, 'I would dream, every night, of being a different person. Now I am that person, and every night I dream of being who I once was before. I am split in two by my past. I cannot escape it, however much I might try to flee.'
'You have it wrong, Che,' said the Seer. 'You cannot run from your past.' And the ancient farlander leaned closer, so that Che caught the reek of his breath. 'You can only sit until you are still, and wait for it to leave you.'
'I try.' Che sighed. 'I meditate, as I was taught here, but still I am torn.'
'What of your Chan?' asked the old man, as though that was somehow relevant. 'Is it as strong as I remember it to be?'
'My Chan?' Che's voice was heavy with disgust. 'If I once possessed such a thing, it was long ago squandered by my own hand. I am not who you think I am, old man.'
'I know who you are,' asserted the farlander. He sounded so certain.
'Then tell me,' said Che.
'You are a laughter, from deep within you.'
'I haven't the patience for riddles tonight.'
The corners of the old man's lips twitched. He gazed down on the burning monastery, and his mouth stiffened.
'When you first came here, I did not notice you. I pay no mind to such things, for you young ones are like the butterflies of summer, always coming then going. But I noticed, on certain days, when the air was still or the wind was playing in the right direction, snatches of laughter coming from the grounds of the monastery. Most laughter that I hear from there, it is restrained, you see, or courting an audience. This, though, was not, and it would always catch my ear. It was – how do you say it – so natural, spontaneous. Like a child experiencing joy.' And the Seer nodded as if in agreement with himself.
'So I asked myself… I asked myself who is it that I can hear laughing so well? And I thought of all who were there as Rshun, all who I knew of, and I did not know.
'So I waited. The answer always comes if you wait long enough, have you noticed? And it did. One day, your master brought you to me, so that I would look into your heart and tell him what I saw. Straight away, I knew you for the creator of that laughter. You had a humour in you, Che, that made spite of your demons.'
Flames now sprouted from the roof of the north wing of the monastery. The dining hall was on fire, and Che thought of the thousands of mealtimes he had spent there, chatting or listening to his peers.
Softly, he asked: 'How is my old master?'
'Shebec? He is dead.'
Che stiffened. Felt a cold numbness wash through him.
The fire was spreading fast; sparks flew wild through the air. The stand of jupe trees in the centre of the courtyard caught alight. From here, two men could see their upper branches wreathed in smoke. The trees themselves swayed in the waves of heat.
'Will they win, your people? I cannot see clearly with these poor eyes of mine.'
'You are the one who is the Seer.'
A faint smile passed over the farlander's lips.
'The Rshun,' said Che, 'they are making a fight of it.'
'That is good.'
'Will you not join them?'
'Me? I am too old to fight.'
They fell to silence. With glazed eyes, Che watched the reflections of flames as they were cast against the underbelly of low clouds. He thought: This was home to me once. I think it was truly the only home I have ever known.
'They will kill you, if you stay here,' he warned.
'I know.'
Part of the roof collapsed. The flames leapt higher.
'And my people,' said the Seer. 'They will kill you, if they win through.'
'I would expect so,' replied the young man.
The old Seer chuckled drily to himself. He patted Che's hand once more. 'Then sit with me a while longer,' he said, 'and let us see what happens.'
*
