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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 1491424" data-attributes="member: 16760">[This unfinished manuscript was found among the effects of a prosperous Alaronese burgher, much-loved in his neighborhood for his kindness and acts of charity.  His body, when prepared for burial, was found quite unexpectedly to bear the brands of a Tear-monk.]Among the Tear-MonksIf I thought that by recording these events in my memoirs I should do any harm to the monastery on Tear, I would gladly cut off my hand and never touch pen and paper again.  I owe them an incalculable debt.  But I well know that no words of mine, nor of anyone, could do them harm;  the silence of the Way swallows up words and transmutes them into timeless being and pure actions.  I still consider myself a servant of the Way, even if I did find in my Wanderings that I was called to marry and sire children.  Elder Brother gave me his blessing, and, in typically inverted fashion, gave me a final command to tell one person about my time there rather than swearing me to secrecy.  I told my wife, rest her soul, and now I tell you who read my memoirs.Sealord Rikko had promised me gold if I brought back information that could be used against the Tear-monastery.  "You know what they say, boyo - 'Know thy stinkin' enemy.' "  I was young and stupid, having gone to sea after a disagreement with the woman's husband.  The gold looked good, and it looked even better when compared to the life of a Islander slave.  For some reason he hadn't branded me with the rest of the crew when he took our ship;  he took me on and tried me for a couple years, and I kept my nose clean.  I came to enjoy a buccaneer's rough-and-tumble life.  Once I screwed up the courage to ask him why he'd spared me, and he just said, "Better not to stick your nose where it might be cut off, eh, boyo?  But I'll say this much - you have an honest face, though no god knows where you came by it.  Might be I have a use for that."  Then with a chilling laugh, he added, "And it's not too late to warm up the branding irons if you don't hop to!"  You can believe I "hopped to" with a will for the next few months, until he finally let me know what "use" he had for me.His ruse was elaborate - "Those Tear-jerkers have more eyes than thee and me know of, boyo."  I cleaned myself up and signed on as a cabin boy - for I've always looked younger than my age - on a legitimate merchant vessel out of Lucia.  I played my part well - none suspected me.  (Cap'n Rikko, for his part, amused himself greatly by playing the part of my own dear father come to see me off to sea.)  I sailed with them for several voyages before Rikko arranged, through many intermediaries, for them to carry a cargo to Festburg.  Naturally they watered at Tear on the way, and Rikko hit them shortly thereafter.  I leapt overboard in "terror" during the fighting - and I hear that the old snake later actually tearfully demanded compensation from the owners for the loss of his "own dear son".I washed up on Tear, quite sincerely miserable.  The villagers, like coastal villagers anywhere, took me in and cared for me as a castaway.  My pathetic thanks to them were not wholly feigned, and in my heart I felt rather the cad;  but I reminded myself of the gold and the branding irons, and hardened it.  I moved slow, not wanting to appear too eager.  I made myself useful among my hosts and waited for the Way and the monks to be brought up in conversation.  It didn't take long;  they would often look up to the Height and talk almost as if they were praying.  I asked many questions about the Way and they gave me some vague, nonsensical answers - and, pleased with my interest, added, "If you would know more, go up to the Height!"  I hadn't dreamed things would be so easy.  (And now I can only laugh ruefully at my ignorance...)I pounded on the monastery door, and Brother Porter answered. Giving me a slave's traditional obeisance to a freeman, he asked, eyes downcast, "How may this slave be of aid to you, young master?"  "I wanted to know more about this Way of yours, sir."  "Are you making a jest, master?  If so, please forgive this ignorant slave for not understanding it."  He was even more obsequious than most slaves, which is saying something. "It is not for a slave to instruct a free man," he continued, "especially in matters that you already know far better than I.  We know nothing of the Way here."  Confused, I asked, "But don't you teach it here?"  "Of course not, master.  You have been misinformed," and apologized for his inability to help with apparently sincere distress.  Then he invited me into the vestibule, brought me some rather fine food, and sank into impenetrable silence.  After I'd shuffled my feet for a while, he finally said, "Are they not expecting you in the village, master?"  I took the hint and left.I surmised, correctly as it happens but for all the wrong reasons, that I was being tested.  I went to the monastery each day and pounded on the door.  Each day Brother Porter greeted me and fed me and protested the monks' inability to teach me anything at all, but especially the Way.  Finally, in impatience I said, "Yes, yes.  Maybe I should teach you then!"  He smiled widely and said with total sincerity, "How good and kind of you to offer, master!  Please, do come in!  We are deeply honored by your selfless desire to teach mere slaves about the Way!"I felt considerably bewildered as I was led deeper into the monastery for the first time.  I was shown to a spacious but rather bare chamber.  "We apologize for the lack of luxury, master;  we have few resources here.  Is it convenient for you to begin lessons tomorrow at dawn?"  "Of course," I said, wondering what on earth I was going to say.  Fortunately I found the next morning that I was not the only "teacher".  There were three other "masters" - an older man, a lad about my own age, and a woman of middle age.  The entire community of monks sat crosslegged before us;  I noticed with a shudder as I entered that many of them bore vicious welts on their backs.  They started bombarding us with eager questions, but always one by one and waiting for us to reply.  I noticed that I got questions like, "What is the Way?" and "How may we learn more of it?" while the others were asked things like, "What is this First Posture of Attainment of which we all have heard so much?" and "Can you explain the Method of the Still Mind to us, master?"  When it came to be my turn, I tried the truth:  "I don't know."  I tried faking it, producing long impressive answers.  I tried pleading with them and cursing their lack of cooperation.  Everything I said was treated as if it was of the most incredible profundity;  they hung on each word.  It was quite unsettling.  My fellow "teachers" were still and impassive when I spoke, giving no clues to me as to what was going on.After an interminable interval, the monks rose as one and left, save for one merry-eyed older man.  "I am Brother Servant.  The others, alas, have duties they may not shirk, but I have been given permission to tend to your needs and learn from your wisdom."  He then asked humbly for us to "correct" his posture and poise in various exercises.  We all imitated him as best we could, I quite clumsily.  After a while I caught on to his method:  He would ask me things like, "Should I be holding my left arm as high as you are, master?" and I would answer it in the negative and lower it until he stopped asking.  It was a maddeningly circuitous way of learning;  I often wished he'd just tell me what to do and be done with it.  But soon I was so exhausted that I stopped wondering and just went with the flow.  I felt like a limp rag by the end of the day, when Brother Servant humbly thanked us for our instruction - and, offering me a small box with eyes averted, he said, "I believe you forgot these, master."  Inside were a ring and a small knife in a sheath - now that I thought of it, just like those the other teachers wore.  Brother Servant, just like any ordinary slave, would not so much as look at the knife as I took it and belted it on.Over the next few weeks, I gradually learned the rules of the place:If I did not show up on time to "teach" in the morning, or if I left off "instructing" Brother Servant before he was good and ready to stop being "instructed", I would be commended on my devotion to meditation and spiritual things, with which they would cooperate by respecting my desire to fast.  In other words, I wouldn't be fed that day.I was to bathe only in the privacy of my room.  "Surely it is not for a free man to expose himself like a slave, master?"  Indeed, I was not to show any of my body at any time save for face, hands, and feet.I was to wear the ring and the knife at all times, a sign of my status as a free man.  Living in surroundings where everyone paid such obsequious respect to those signs, I came to feel curiously dirty wearing them.I was "encouraged" to confide privately to Brother Servant each evening any thought or action of mine that I believed contrary to the Way.  These little confidences, you see, were to buoy up his flagging spirits and show him that even one so exalted as I had difficulties.  He would mournfully assure me that he did far worse things at all times, and did I think that this minor penalty would be sufficient mortification?  I soon learned to take his hints... and even sooner learned that if I tried to stay silent or gloss over my peccadillos, that somehow he would always manage to bring them up, always as things that he, poor slave that he was, was subject to, of course.  That old man's eyes and smile seemed to penetrate into my very soul... Once, he brought up the subject of "deception" and turned a smile on me so bland that my heart froze and I thought, "He knows!"  But he changed the subject, uncharacteristically, shortly after.At the turn of the year, the lad my age - his name was Odric, if I recall correctly - didn't turn up for "lessons".  We were told that he had left us, but a few weeks later he turned up again - as one of the monks, branded and bare-chested.  He would not speak to me nor even look me directly in the eye, nor would he answer to Odric, so I finally gave up.  Brother Servant assured me, "We have no brother here named Odric, master."  Still, it was clear he had gotten "in", when somehow even the older ones hadn't.  What was his secret?It took quite a while, for I was quite dense, but I finally realized that my original answer to their first question "What is the Way?", namely, "I don't know," was actually the correct one.  The Way cannot be known, cannot be expressed in words.  Trying to "know" it is a waste of time.  Trying to "teach" it is utter folly.  When the day came that I realized that "free man" - free of the Way, that is - in their vocabulary was a synonym for "fool", I started to make real progress.  By the time that day came, I hadn't thought of Rikko, or of gold, in some time.  Not so much because I had grown virtuous, as because it had become too uncomfortable to think about.Finally one day, surprising even myself, I blurted out the whole story to Brother Servant in one of our little evening chats.  I confessed that I was a spy, a liar, a cheat, one who had sold them out for gold.  For the first time in my memory, Brother Servant frowned.  "This is most serious," he said, not calling me "master".  "I believe you should repeat this story to the entire monastery."  The monks were assembled, and, trembling, I made my confession, awash in tears.  It would have been easier if they had hated me, cursed me, beat me, but they just stared at me - all of them - with the most serenely cool disapproval and rejection you've ever seen.  "Clearly," Elder Brother said, "you are not worthy to be here. Do you wish to leave?"  I hung my head.  "I'll go immediately."  "That is not what I asked.  Do you wish to leave?"  "...No."  "Then remain.  But we will consider what mortification is necessary to expiate your crime.  Attend us in the hour before dawn."I didn't sleep that night.  Not a wink.  I thought about running.  In fact, I blush to admit, I actually tried, but found the door bolted and guarded by Brother Porter, unsmiling.  I slunk back to my room.My worst fears were realized.  When I showed up in the courtyard, several burly monks seized me and stripped me of my clothes.  I was frogmarched into an inner courtyard I hadn't seen before, where there was a whipping post, and ominous dark stains about it on the ground.  They tied me there securely as I trembled and sweated.  The monks filed in slowly and surrounded me in a half-circle to observe my punishment.  Already terrified, when I saw the viciously barbed cat-o'-nine-tails in the hands of one of the monks, I would have wet myself if my bladder hadn't been dry as a bone.  I'd seen men die from the application of one of those, and it had struck me as a singularly ugly way to die.The barbs whistled in the air behind me, then fell with a great CRACK!  I screamed before I realized they hadn't touched me.  Nine more great CRACKS came, and in the silence that followed, Elder Brother said, "Well, brother, I certainly hope you have learned your lesson."I have no idea what I said in reply.  They released me, and then brought forward the glowing brands.  That really did hurt, but I don't remember much of it.After I had spent a few days recovering from the burns - apparently it was given out that I was unwell, which was true enough - they presented me with my old shirt, ring, and knife.  Bewildered as I hadn't been since my first day, I said, "But aren't I a monk now?!"  Brother Servant merely informed me with a smile, "It is most fortunate that your terrible injury has marked only your body, master, and not caused your indomitable spirit to flag."  Knowing his ways by now, I figured out that my spirit needed to be similarly branded.And so I went back to my room, back to relative luxury, back to endlessly maddening "teaching" that I knew to be futile and thus found even more intolerable than before.  By the time the first of the year came, I had tasted the bitterest dregs of being "free".  At that time Elder Brother gave me my new name and my old life came to an end.  The real learning began.</blockquote>

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