Together they buried her by the roots of a young oak tree. Despite Death’s kindness, the pain of her passing cut into Mah Lin and Selah like a razor sharp knife.
That evening, they knelt by the earthen hearth of the cooking fire. The orange flames from aromatic wood leapt and licked up the sides of the metal cooking pot. The water boiled fiercely as it changed from liquid to vapor. For a long time there was only silence. Eventually Mah Lin asked Selah what she saw. “The elements, father,” was her reply. “Yes, daughter,” was his.
They stood up together and reached into the fire for a burning bough. They paused on the way out only long enough to toss it gently on the empty bed. The horse had already been hitched to the wagon and the temple library already loaded. Mah Lin had drawn his sword and sliced furiously at his long dark hair. The blade was soon cutting across scalp and the blood flowed freely but unnoticed. By the time his head was shorn and shaven, the flames had filled the house and poured out and upwards from every opening.
Both father and daughter moved wearily, weighed down by the pain of transition. As they turned together and began walking away, she adjusted the sword on his back, much like her mother would have done. In the dancing light of the raging fire she saw the pentagram on its hilt. On each of the star s five points, a character: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood.
By the time they reached the mountain their old house glowed like a tiny ember, and their previous life had been transformed into just a memory.
Selah never questioned why or where they were going. This was not the time for talking; it was the time for her unwavering faith in her father’s judgment. Dawn was breaking as they reached the base of the temple’s mountain, and by mid-morning they had arrived at its blackened summit. She followed him closely with horse and cart, just as she had done with her mother many years before. Now, however, she was no longer a child, but a woman grown rich in both wisdom and beauty.
The brick and mortar that was this place lay scattered and moss covered, like the bones and armor of its dead. She held her trepidation in check and wondered if this is the only peace that war can bring. Their obedient mare had soon found water. It grazed happily in the over grass, content for now with the chance to rest. Both monk and soldier lay where they had fallen. Selah watched her father solemnly go about the business of gathering and piling the skeletal remains of his monastic brothers. Quietly she began to help him with his task.
From a respectable distance she saw her father kneel in silence beside the ragged robed bones of his abbot. To these he summoned life. With closed eyes he recalled time spent and lessons learned. Reaching into the mottled robes of the master, he removed the treasured relic he knew the abbot would have died defending. The metal shone brightly in the sunlight.
Placing the object safely beneath the folds of his tunic the priest said calmly, “The vajra, from the hands of Bodhidharma to the earliest monks of our order.” This was the connection of past with present, the object that linked steel to scroll. Seeing the unspoken question in his daughter’s eyes he offered more. “The vajra, the library, and the sword – The spirit, the mind, and the body.” His role and responsibility within the temple had not ended with the destruction of its mighty walls, it had merely been transformed.
Together on this holy ground they built a crypt of blackened stone like a monument within a monument, and when they had finished Mah Lin began the prayers for the dead. The father and husband that she had known was a good and formidable man, but here at this destroyed temple she saw his strength gather to unearthly proportions. She remembered the monk that mother and child had found broken and lifeless, and now witnessed him emerging from the ashes of these sacred ruins like the phoenix of ancient tales.
Mah Lin continued his search of the mountaintop looking for something other than bone or fragment. He chose carefully from the armor parts and weapons strewn about, some still protecting a long perished body part and some still held tightly in the grip of the dead, as the load of humble cart steadily increased. On the eve of the third day, Mah Lin found what he had been seeking. It lay underneath a fallen shield, undisturbed by the passage of time. The monk picked it up and cleaned it off with the sleeve of his tunic.
He called to Selah to show her what he held in the palm of his outstretched hand. She gazed in wonder at the beautiful artifact, small but substantial, lovingly crafted, and timeless. On the dull bronze pentagon lay the raised metallic image of the imperial dragon. A round hollow lay clutched in its five-clawed talon, and within this circular well a delicate needle lay suspended and precisely balanced. As her father offered this dragon to the four corners of the world, the needle moved quickly around to keep its original place.
“Selah, we have new purpose, and now direction,” were the words of the powerful monk, the action of a loving father was an embrace. Only then, within the safety of his protective arms, did her tears fall freely upon his dusty shirt. When the storm of her grief had passed, he stroked her shimmering hair and gently whispered as only a father could, “Selah, we will go now, it is complete.”
So it was that they traveled on, their cart carrying the relics of this consecrated place, and their hearts carrying the remnants of their former peaceful lives. As they descended the path with the well-loaded carriage, the sharp-eyed raven took flight and followed, calling out their progress and championing their renewal. Mah Lin knew that the second pair of eyes that had been watching them secretly would also give voice to their actions.
He understood that information would flow upward from hidden sentry to high commander just as surely as the mountain stream flows down from savage peak to gentle lowland.
By day and by night they traveled, stopping briefly to cook and eat what sustenance their route graciously provided. Moving relentlessly from north to southeast, Mah Lin would consult the spinning needle and study carefully one of the oldest parchment maps saved from the destroyed temple.
Over the course of their steady progress, Mah Lin explained that not all the manuscripts they carried were from his former monastery. Some, like the map they now followed, came from a much older place, and it was to this place, the place of all origins, that they were heading. It was this sanctuary that would provide them with the safety and protection that they needed, and within these walls of security they would once again build life.
Selah was very much like their dependable load-pulling horse. She never complained about the length or severity of their journey, or even questioned its nebulous purpose. She thought sometimes about the life they had left behind, but realized that they were not so much leaving something as moving towards something else. Her heart knew that the steady pace they had set had both direction from the delicately spinning needle, and purpose reflected in the calm and serious expression worn on the face of her father.
Mah Lin spoke of a world in a state of chaos, like the destruction from the heavens that brings the hail, the rain, and the winds. He spoke of it churning slowly and grinding steadily in its natural and unstoppable rotation. He explained that the place they now sought was a place of refuge from this tempest. The ancient of ancient temple site was the calm within this storm, the eye of this ever-expanding hurricane.
The star filled night sky covered the two travelers like a simple beggar’s bowl. As Selah’s eyes grew heavy her father’s grew more vigilant. He had heard the diminutive sounds of snapping twigs and the slight rustle of leaves in the underbrush. Now he sat calmly waiting, while his skilled hands comfortably touched the familiar wooden sword handle.
From the darkness stepped the huddled and half-hidden figure of an old man. Like a moth attracted by the fire’s light he sought to share a morsel, and perhaps some idle nighttime conversation. In truth he desired only the basic warmth of human contact. He was garbed in blackened