The New Hero: Volume 1 by ed. Robin D. Laws

Author:ed. Robin D. Laws [Laws, ed. Robin D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Stone Skin Press

Chaos possessed the monastery. The cessation of the chanting had caught the attention of monks returning late from the summit and they had woken the others. The corpses below had been discovered and among them, the long-decayed remains of Tetsumonkai. Prayers and lamentations still resounded from the Golden Hall; while some roamed the complex weeping and others performed frantic star-jumps, a few had commenced plunging from the prayer gate on the grounds that the waterfall was too far away. Only here in this courtyard was there anything approaching calm. Brother Heihachi had been accosted by the Cursebreaker and persuaded to brew some genuine tea. Fears assuaged, he was cooking with increasing enthusiasm.

‘Manabumaru won’t stay.’ Shichiro sat on the steps of the refectory, gazing at the lightening sky. ‘He’s asked me to leave with him.’

‘It’s a dangerous world out there.’ The Cursebreaker swallowed a red bean dumpling. ‘But I guess Manabumaru has discovered things in himself that can’t be dealt with by climbing mountains.’

‘Yes.’

‘At least now he’ll be properly dressed.’ She speared another dumpling. ‘And will you follow him?’

‘No.’

How could he explain it, even to himself? The months without his lover had seen him desolate, plagued by guilt and fear. Only in the monastery and the mountains themselves had he found solace. Perhaps it was cowardice to stay, but it did not feel like cowardice. Not given what had happened here.

The columns cast shadows now, as a silvery luminescence grew in the sky. The guardian carvings patrolled the roof beams. Amongst the dark hills below, mist rose once more from the concealed paths and streams. All was as it had been before he performed the summoning, and the dawn before that; a thousand dawns. Someone should point that out to the wretches running around, behaving like monkeys.

‘No matter what the rest of the world is like,’ he said slowly, ‘there must always be a peaceful valley here and mountaintops pointing towards Heaven. One day, maybe, Manabumaru will seek peace again.’

‘Maybe so.’ The Cursebreaker turned her face to the sunrise and put down her bowl. ‘You’re a good man, Shichiro. Perhaps one day you will become something more.’

At that, he had to speak the words that were hovering fearfully in his throat. ‘The book I read said something of the origin of the Cursebreaker. She was a scholar in a distant land and time, who challenged the great incarnation of Dharma.’

‘I call her Fate. All three of her.’

‘She was condemned to labour, unceasing, unending. There was... there was great wisdom in what you told Tetsumonkai. Could you not accept it yourself?’

‘You mean, stop caring?’

‘What I mean, is—’

‘That is what you mean. For Fate to even consider releasing me, I would have to stop accusing her. But in each new place I appear, in each new curse, I discover more and worse. Such things as you can’t, that you shouldn’t imagine: a man unable to heal. A woman unable to love. I know you mean well, Shichiro. But knowing, how can I not care?’

The sun crested the triple summits and just as it was written, the Cursebreaker was gone.

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