vegetables and cracked barley and it had been quite tasty, for camp food. A lot of the folk from the Valley of the Sun didn’t eat meat, but a lot did, and the ones who didn’t weren’t the sort who got in your face about it. It tasted less good with Juliet Thurston in the circle, and she wasn’t the only one who felt like that.
“A fine boy,” Dorje said, and smiled at the mother. “You are brave, to undertake the responsibility of raising him.”
Juliet’s face was usually hard and reserved, but the lines of grief on it were visible now. She made a small sound and seemed to shrink into herself at the glares she would once have ignored.
The lama sighed and looked around at the others; the firelight picked out his wrinkles, like the hills and valleys of a mysterious country. Beyond gleamed the peaks of mountains where bear and cougar and tiger roamed, and men as savage as either.
“My friends,” he said gently, “self-righteousness is the fumes of decomposing vanity; it is the means the Devil’s Guard use to cloud the vision of those who truly love virtue. If someone is far along a journey to destruction, shall you hate them for waking to their situation, and turning about, and taking even a single halting half step back? Will that encourage them to take a second step, and a third? Or will it minister only to the darkness in our own souls?”
Ouch, Ritva thought, wincing; and again she thought she wasn’t the only one. Yup. He really does make you see things too clearly.
Dorje went on to Juliet Thurston, his voice mild and implacable:
“He who puts his hand into the fire knows what he may expect. Nor may the fire be blamed. He who intrudes on a neighbor may receive what he does not expect. Nor may the neighbor be blamed. The fire will not be harmed; but the neighbor may be. And every deed of every kind bears corresponding consequences to the doer. You may spend a thousand lives repaying wrong done to a neighbor. Therefore, of the two indiscretions prefer thrusting your own hand into the fire. But there is a Middle Way, which avoids all trespassing.”
“I…”
Whatever else she might be, Martin Thurston’s wife was no fool. Ritva could see her fair brows turn down in thought, and she believed there was a tinge of genuine gratitude there.
“What exactly do you mean, sir?” Juliet asked carefully.
“You have caused much harm, through vicious selfishness, and it turned on you.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“You are fortunate it did so quickly; this is an opportunity. But do not fancy yourself uniquely guilty, a monster who is a wonder to the world; that too is vanity, and leads back to the same errors. You cannot undo the past by regret; nor can you avoid the painful consequences of your actions through fear. Both these things are equally impossible. Do not dwell on the past or deny it; do not fear the future.”
“Regrets and fears are about all I have now,” she said.
“No. You have a son; and you have amends to make to others. You have a task to do now, and virtue consists of doing it.” Sternly. “So get to work, child!”
Ritva felt the force of that spear-sentence, even though she was not the target. Juliet blinked, gaping, and then nodded and sank down in a bit of a heap. Dorje inclined his head back to her and turned his glance away, in respect for privacy rather than dismissal. His hand continued to stroke the dark bronze of the boy’s curls, and the child snuggled closer and dozed.
“You said that we’d meet again, guru,” Ritva said.
Dorje grinned. “You and the others,” he said. “I understand that you need to return quickly, not at the pace of this great mass of people?”
Alleyne nodded; he seemed to be a little less tight-wound now. “Yes, sir. Our mission was to rescue Mrs. Thurston… the elder Mrs. Thurston… and her children and reunite them with Frederick, who I understand you’ve met.”
Dorje nodded. “A most earnest young man, for good and ill; but more for good.”
Which is a great capsule description of Fred! Ritva thought.
Alleyne went on: “Partly because they were in danger; but also, frankly, because we need to get the truth of what happened out more widely. We’ve made a start on that in Boise, but it will be extremely helpful if we can get them… and the younger Mrs. Thurston and her son… back to Montival quickly. Living evidence, as it were.”
Though technically we are in Montival, Ritva thought.
She knew what he meant, though; it was people that made a kingdom, not geography, and what few inhabitants there were in the wildlands probably hadn’t heard that the current war was going on, or who the contending parties were. A fair number had survived the Change in this thinly populated wilderness, as numbers went in the modern world. But the reason it had been so empty back then was that there wasn’t much in the way of water or good land. Almost all of the survivors had relocated afterwards, moving to where life was easier in places emptied by the great dying and where hands to work and fight were always welcome. There was a very thin scatter left, Rovers who lived by hunting more than herding. Most of them were people you wouldn’t want to meet, especially if you were alone.
Still, it’s sort of beautiful here. I like deserts, though I wouldn’t want to live in one, she thought, looking up at the aching clarity of the sky, where sparks from the fires were scarcely brighter than the stars. And it’s certainly reassuring to see another twenty-five hundred good cavalry headed our way.
“I will accompany you,” Dorje said, and laughed at his polite dismay. “My son, when I was five years old I walked four hundred miles across the Himalayas to reach Nepal. I know this scrawny old carcass of mine, and I do not delude myself as to what it can and cannot do. It will serve me as long as needed.”
“Ah, Hir i Dunedain…” Ritva said. “If he says he can do something, believe him. Really.”
“I agree with you, roquen,” Alleyne said. To Dorje, in English: “Certainly you won’t slow us down more than a two-year-old, sir.”
Another of the Sun Valley folk leaned forward. He had an Eastern face too, but of a different stamp than Dorje’s, smoother and the color of pale ivory, and he was about a generation younger, in a lean fit middle-age where every visible muscle showed like an anatomical diagram beneath the skin. He was clad in a set of lamellar armor linked with cords, a dao saber at his belt and a bowcase and quiver beside him.
“This is Master Hao,” Dorje said. “He will make the practical arrangements. He is one of our brotherhood who has sought Enlightenment through the development of certain skills of mind and body.”
Eilir Signed, and Ritva translated automatically: “You don’t look much like my idea of a Buddhist monk, Master Hao.”
She smiled when she Signed it. Hao didn’t, but there was a knowledgeable respect in the glances he gave all the Dunedain, and in the ones that returned. Ritva’s muscles twinged as she recalled the months they’d spent in the Valley of the Sun; to let Mary and Rudi heal from their wounds, but they’d all trained under Master Hao and his acolytes as well. It had been…
Somewhat rigorous, she thought. And the Pacific Ocean is somewhat large, rather wet and a bit salty.
“Mine was a different path along the Way than the Rimpoche’s,” Hao said.
Dorje chuckled. “Many different schools came to that convention on Buddhism on the World Wide Web. This has made life more… interesting… since, after the Change converted our hotel into a monastery.”
Hao snorted. “I must remain with the army, of course,” he said.
Well, alae, duh, Ritva thought. You’re the commander, Mr. Shaolin.
“However, we have a very large selection of horses and gear,” he went on. “You may of course take your pick.”
Ian gave an almost inaudible whimper, and she elbowed him discreetly.
Another relay race on horseback, she agreed. Then: It’s going to be hard on Cecile and the girls. And Juliet. Good thing we’ll have liniment and some experienced fieldmasseurs, like me and Aunt Eilir. We can rig a carrier cradle for Lawrence Jr., but he’s not going to be a happy camper after a while either, poor little guy.
Alleyne brought out a map. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a spot near Winnemucca. “We need to get here.”
His finger came down on Ashland, in the Rogue River Valley south of the Willamette.
“The rail line was cleared and repaired that far three years ago, just before the war started. We can catch pedal cars from there, and then be anywhere on the rail net quickly, with a maximum priority to clear the track.”
