Outlaw. Part 36

Yes. At which his mother would be sacrificed to that darkness.

Fear whispered through his mind. It was then that Stephen realized his task might be impossible, and the thought made him s.h.i.+ver.

He closed his eyes. Breathed. Set his mind at the feet of his infinite Father. Saw that there was no snake to threaten such vast love and power. As far as the east was from the west-as far as one end of infinity was from the other-this was how far his Father had removed the threat of separation from him. It no longer existed, not even in the mind of G.o.d, for even to think of a threat is to be threatened. The infinite did not contemplate any such thing.

Peace washed over him like warm water, and he breathed it deep.

When he opened his eyes, the fog was gone.

"You see, Stephen. Madness has no power over you," he whispered.

A long call cut the still air and he spun to see its source. The call was coming from another bluff some distance off. It was uttered by a warrior just visible between the trees, calling down into the valley.

The cry echoed, then fell away, followed by another, this one from much farther down in the valley, barely heard, answering or pa.s.sing on the first call.

He'd been seen by Warik scouts. They were sending word down into the valley. So then...they would be ready for him.

But he'd expected no less. Kirutu was no fool. The ruler knew now that the white son raised as Outlaw was a highly skilled warrior not easily killed.

And this was Kirutu's clear intention. To kill him.

Stephen knew this as well, and being reminded of it now gave him pause. But he allowed the concern to pa.s.s quickly. His place wasn't to outwit or best Kirutu. Not this time. Nor ever.

It would take some time to reach the village, and darkness would be falling. They would be waiting and he wouldn't disappoint them.

He ducked back into the jungle and ran. Through the trees, down the switchbacks that took him lower, always lower, then over a creek and up a rise, the view of the valley now hidden by the jungle.

Still he ran, closing the distance between himself and Kirutu.

His mother would be awake now, he thought. She probably wouldn't remember what had happened in her dreams, much less realize that they, not her waking hours, held the Truth of awakening. It could be said that his mother was only truly awake while sleeping. During the day she lived a nightmare, separated from the Truth. Only the remnants of her dreams continued to give her hope.

He would quicken that hope. Like a burning log, he would join her and their fire would burn brighter. Where two or more gathered, there was always more light, Shaka said.

Exactly how he would do this when he arrived at the Warik village, he didn't know yet. In truth he knew far more what he would not do when he arrived than what he would.

He would not entertain any grievance against Kirutu or the Warik.

He would not allow his costume to wail of its need or shout with any grievance.

He would not resist.

He was dead to this flesh, to the law of the world. His costume might not know it, because it was only flesh and bone and brain, but his true self, long ago made whole, did.

He was only a short way from the knoll that overlooked the village when he heard the sound of cras.h.i.+ng through the understory to his right. His first thought was that he'd disturbed a boar.

He pulled up and scanned the forest. This was human. And now he could hear the unmistakable sound behind and to his left as well.

They already had him surrounded, just beyond the trees. The thought that he should evade them again skipped through his mind, but he immediately let it go. He'd been raised in this jungle for this day. Resisting his destiny on any level would only trigger his own madness once again.

So he ran on. They herded him forward. He could easily escape. Kirutu would know that. They knew he could just as easily turn and kill any number of the warriors who trailed him in the bush-perhaps it was why they didn't attack.

Run, Stephen. Run to your mother. Run to Kirutu. This is your path now. Run.

He ran. Closer. Very close. Close enough to hear a low chant rising from the valley ahead.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Like a slow drumbeat that pulsed through the trees and reached into his bones. They were waiting.

Stephen did not slow. Neither did he press forward with more speed. He simply ran to his destiny. To whatever awaited, without judging what that might be. For this he had been brought to the jungle.

For this he had been saved.

And then he was there, bursting from the trees out onto the knoll that overlooked the Warik village, which sat half a mile down the wide, gra.s.sy slope. He pulled up hard, taken off guard by what he saw.

A thick slab of black cloud hung low over the village, creating a ceiling that no light could penetrate. The ominous sky s.h.i.+fted and flowed, perfectly flat and silent.

It had no reason to shriek or thunder-that power had been pa.s.sed to the sea of flesh below.

The warning calls he'd heard on the cliff had reached the village long ago, and Kirutu had gathered his Warik into a ma.s.sive show of force, ten thousand strong outside the main gate. Warriors all, blackened skin glistening in the light of a dozen fires. They formed a wide arc, perhaps several hundred men wide, fifty deep, and faced the hill on which he stood.

Facing him.

Chanting, armed with bows and spears, dressed in bright paint and feathers-the only color besides the light of the fire and the whites of their eyes.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

And with each chant their feet and the b.u.t.ts of their spears came down hard on the earth, ten thousand crus.h.i.+ng hammers that sent a tremor through the earth.

A chill rode Stephen's bones, unbidden by his will.

Before the sea of Warik warriors stood a large pyre of wood stacked around a post. And strapped upright to that post...

His mother.

Ten paces to her right, Kirutu stood tall and broad-chested, glistening with greasy, blackened skin. He stared up the hill at Stephen.

Somewhere at the edge of the inexhaustible reservoir of peace and wholeness, Stephen's costume began to scream. And for a long moment that stretched out with each rumbling chant from below, he wondered if he could do what he was meant to do, not yet even knowing what he was to do.

Surrender your own understanding. Trust only in the truth. See the narrow path. Follow him. This is the Way.

And that Way would lead him down the hill to that black sea. It was no different from stepping off the sh.o.r.e and walking out on the black waters in the dead of night. Hadn't the Master been a Water Walker? Wasn't he still?

Stephen looked over his shoulder. The jungle behind him was lined with a hundred armed warriors, staring at him with fixed resolve. They did not approach, they did not speak, they only stared, and in their eyes he could see fear.

Fear. They knew that if they attacked, he was more than capable of taking any number of lives before vanis.h.i.+ng into the jungle.

These warriors were only doing what Kirutu demanded of them.

Stephen faced the gathered host and walked forward, one foot before the other, down the slope, into the reverberating chant.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Now his breathing was shallow and his pulse deep. And his costume began to ask its maddening questions, innocuous at first, then with an edge of fear.

Why has Kirutu gathered so many in such a crus.h.i.+ng show of power?

"Because he is terrified, deep inside, where a voice asks him why even such a skilled warrior would return to certain death in a hopeless attempt to save his mother."

Did you come to save your mother?

"I came for Kirutu, who holds my mother's costume in his claws."

And how will you defeat Kirutu?

"I won't."

You've gone mad! What can you possibly do?

His mind went blank. One foot in front of the other.

"I will remember. I will surrender. I will be what I am and surrender all else."

And if you fail to find that place of infinite power inside you, they will kill you.

"They cannot kill me. My life is eternal."

They will kill me!

"I don't need my costume."

I do! I need your costume! I am your costume!

Stephen hesitated. "Be quiet," he said aloud. "You're already dead."

Their chanting, delivered in perfect unison with hammering feet and pounding spears, shook the earth as the slope gave way to level ground. The blazing fires that stretched east and west before the Warik sent sparks to the black-capped sky with each stomp.

He glanced behind and saw that the warriors who'd herded him here followed, fifty paces to his rear.

The only thing Stephen knew to do was walk, as he had once before, this time knowing that he was walking into the arms of a crus.h.i.+ng force.

Two others stood near his mother's pyre. An emaciated man who wore no paint nor dress of any kind. And to his right, one step behind, a frail-looking woman wearing only an old gra.s.s skirt. Death had hollowed out their stares. They watched Stephen without expression. He thought it might be the prince of his mother's story, Wilam, and his wife, Melino. Stephen couldn't be sure.

Kirutu had strapped his mother to the post at her ankles and bound her arms behind the pole to keep her upright. A dirty brown sack covered her head.

They will burn her.

She is safe.

They will burn you.

I am safe.

There's no way out!

There is the Way. And it is in, not out. Shaka said I would see it.

Shaka has gone mad!

You are madness.

Stephen came to a stop twenty paces from Kirutu, who stared at him, hand wrapped tightly around his spear. His chest rose and fell slowly as the thundering chant made his power plain. His mouth was flat, his face resolute. But Stephen saw something else beyond his eyes.

Fear.

Uncertainty. Terror, beneath layers of power and years of brutality, but hiding there still, in the deepest caverns of his mind.

A strange calm settled into Stephen's mind. Who was Kirutu but another deeply wounded man who didn't know what else to do but protect his costume?

The ruler was used to an enemy who would resist him, and he'd learned to crush any such threat. Now came one from Shaka who walked willingly to his death without fear. Kirutu could not understand this. And what he couldn't understand, he feared.

Stephen felt the world fall away. The chants faded, the air thickened. He experienced no grievance, no judgment, no blame-these things were not his concern. And in that place without grievance, he saw no threat. Before him stood a child, crying out for what he had long forgotten.

Screaming out for a love he had never known.

Compa.s.sion swallowed Stephen whole and a knot rose into his throat. What was inconceivable to flesh and bone became perfectly clear to him. There were no words to explain it.

Kirutu lifted his hand, a casual gesture that was immediately taken as a command. The chanting ceased. The earth stilled, leaving only the crackling of fire and the anguished sound of a woman trying to hold back her sobs.

His mother was crying under the hood.

Stephen held his eyes on Kirutu, pulled by his mother's fear.

Deditio. Surrender. Remember who you and your mother are. There is no threat. None.

Kirutu stepped forward, brazen before a people who could not see the fear in his heart. Blinded to it himself.

He stopped two paces from Stephen and ran his gaze down to his feet, then back up to his eyes.

"You wish to die," he said in a low, graveled voice.

"You can kill my body, but not the love inside it."

"And this childish love for a mother will end only in the burning of your flesh with hers."

"I did not come to save my mother," Stephen said.

Kirutu watched him, unblinking.