Chloe’s frown had morphed into a smile while William was speaking, and now it was a wide grin of inspired understanding.
‘I get it William,’ she murmured. ‘I get it…’
‘I knew you would, lass, I knew you would,’ he said, mirroring her warm smile. ‘Remember, everything is more complex than it seems, and people are the most complex creatures of all. Always keep that thought in mind before you’re quick to judge someone.’
‘I will.’
‘Come Chloe,’ Ranomi said. ‘We still have a lot of training to get through.’
‘Aye, we all do,’ William said, ‘so let’s not waste any more time standing about and wagging our jaws.’
They headed out of the clearing into the jungle, quietly afire with a fresh sense of purpose. Above them, though, the sky was darkening with tight-packed banks of black storm clouds, and beyond the distant hills, thunder boomed its ominous rumble across the earth.
***
31st October. Silom District, Bangkok, near KSM Nightclub
The bassy thumping of the KTM 690 SMC R motorcycle engine drummed out a groove of muted aggression beneath William while he waited for the traffic light to change, and the hypnotic pulsing of the big engine whisked his thoughts out of the present, to a distant time and place.
The eyes of his mind peeled away the layers of yellowed plastic, one by one, in which long-forgotten vistas had been shrink-wrapped; he saw mountains, their serrated peaks as jagged as any predator’s canines, tearing the grey-mottled skin of clouds from the sky to expose the deep azure of its raw flesh. A vast silence lay draped over the land like an invisible sheet, its corners tucked behind the stabbing spires and sheer slopes of these Himalayan peaks. And there, taking in the magnificence of this view, William stood atop the roof of an ancient monastery built, like an eagle’s eyrie, into the cliffs. From this perch he stared over the edge of the roof, looking down a thousand-metre drop that ended in the river below, which looked from this height like nothing more than a metal ribbon carelessly discarded on pebble-strewn ground. The immensity of the height worked its sorcerer’s magic on his mind; vertigo sucked at his body with the relentless pull of a freshly opened vortex into space, and it was all he could do to stay upright. Indeed, his bare feet, with their toes curled around the very last of the roof tiles, already seemed to be creeping inexorably over the edge.
A gravelly, soothing voice spoke with gentle reassurance into his ear from behind.
‘Look down into the abyss. Stare Death in his hollow eyes and tell him that you are not afraid.’
The Teacher.
‘But guru ji, I … I am afraid. I’m bloody well terrified, in fact. One s-, slip, an’ I’ll tumble o’er the edge tae my doom!’
‘You won’t slip though, will you?’
‘By Jove I might!’
‘It is a matter of control, William. Control of body, control of mind, control of soul. Observe to your left that eagle as it rises upon the currents of air, circling ever higher. Look, young cub! We can hardly see her now, so high is her form above the earth!’
William peered up at the sky. He could only just make out a tiny black dot in the far distance, circling in an upwardly spiralling gyre. The Teacher’s eyes shone with a pure, intense delight, a fierce and powerful zest for life, for existence, for everything around him.
‘Can you see her feathers, rippling in the wind?’ he asked, staring with awe and joy at the distant bird. ‘Can you perceive the angle at which she positions her wings to catch the rising drafts of air?’
‘N-, no. No, ay’ course not, guru ji! All I can see is a speck in the sky. No man could make out those details at this distance.’
‘Use your tiger vision. With your tiger eyes you’ll be able to see it as clearly as if you were just a few feet away.’
‘You want me tae shift forms now?’
The Teacher chuckled softly, his baritone voice burbling with amusement, but not mockery.
‘Did I say, “shift forms”? No, young cub, I did not. This is what I need you to remember: you and the tiger are one now. You are no longer merely a man, you are a tiger, and the tiger does not simply live alongside you, it is fused to you. It is every part of you now; it is your bones, your muscles, your nerves, your brain, your blood, your heart … and your soul too. When you truly understand this, you can call upon the tiger’s powers whenever you need to, even without shifting forms. So, use the tiger’s eyes now, use them to observe the glory of that eagle as she rises to the realm of the stars!’
William stared and squinted, straining his eyes, but all that he could see of the eagle was a distant spot in the sky. He slumped his shoulders, crestfallen, and shook his head disappointedly.
‘I cannae, guru ji, I just cannae. I cannae yet dae it.’
The Teacher rested a sympathetic hand on William’s shoulder.
‘Do not be disappointed. Failure is, after all, an essential part of learning. But do not worry, cub, do not worry! There are other ways in which I can help you to overcome the limitations of your old mind. Come, let us trade places.’
William stepped back, relieved to escape the lure of the hungry abyss, and he watched gingerly as the Teacher took his place, standing on the very edge of the roof tiles. The man turned and stood with his back to the edge, smiling at William with a nonchalant ease.
‘Are you no’ afraid, guru ji?’ William asked, his voice tremulous with nerves due to the man’s dangerous proximity to the edge.
‘Not at all, William, because I know that you’re going to catch me when I fall.’
A surge of panic leaped through William’s system, and his
