Much to Jayan’s relief, the virus turned out to be fairly harmless. It ran its course in each patient without any lasting damage. All of the divers were back on their feet within a few days, except for Najat.
The Kumasagi’s convalescence took much longer. His sudden move from Medical Arts to the temple—so quietly in the middle of the night—raised little concern among the medical staff. They found a simple, handwritten note in Najat’s empty bed: Mahasagi Tebhan would tend to Najat himself. None of the doctors rushed over to argue. The infectious stage of the illness had passed for Najat, so there was no harm in letting him mend in relative comfort with the Mahasagi.
Only Amala Tebbe, Mahasagi Tebhan, and their loyal Hands knew that the virus was not the reason Najat convalesced.
He remained secluded in the Mahasagi’s quarters for many tendays. When anyone tried to visit, Rajung politely turned them away at the door.
Jayan Gampoban spent his mornings at Patal University, assisting the botanists and naturalists as they studied specimens from his latest trip. He spent his afternoons at the bottom of the Mahasagi’s staircase, alternately pleading with Rajung and threatening to strangle him. No amount of questioning, bargaining, roaring, or fist shaking worked on Tebhan’s unwavering Second Hand. The ever-patient Rajung simply repeated himself as the days wore on, “The Kumasagi still rests. He must not be disturbed.”
It was a fair trek from Patal University to the temple complex, which squatted above on the roof of the plateau. One day Jayan started back earlier than usual, electing to hike up the steep southeastern stairpath instead of taking a pedicab up the southern road. He needed the extra time to clear his head before confronting Rajung yet again. Somehow, on this day, he must talk his way past the giant oaf to see Najat.
The stairpath bustled with bent porters and weaving message runners—men who spent their lives on foot as Jayan did. It felt good to walk with them. Wide and solid for most of the journey up, the stone steps limped and crumbled at the top, blending with patches of grass at the unofficial service entrance into Shakti Lake City. The entrance was simply a gap where the low eastern and southern walls—also crumbling a bit—did not meet.
Once through the gap, Jayan maneuvered through a sudden swarm of vacant podals and pedicabs. He was even approached by a palanquin team, but he turned down all offers of a ride. He clipped through the crowded open-air market beyond, turning down offers of anything—sweet cakes, scented oils by the jar, canoes for rent. Eventually the market stalls gave way to permanent shops, which then gave way to serene residential streets. The houses increased in size and majesty as Jayan approached the temple complex.
This eastern side of the complex did not have a grand entrance as the south did. Jayan slipped down an alley and emerged at a corner juncture of the temple’s water lane. He checked his bearings as he walked along the moss-fissured mosaics that bordered this part of the lane. A shabby old bathhouse—part of Shakti Lake Boys School—stood across the lane on his right. He passed the rear gardens of several more houses on his left, and then the impressively large backside of the Shakti Lake City Aquatic Theater.
A short bridge offered passage to the other side of the lane, where he walked by the school’s two lap pools, rolling over in his mind the arguments with which he planned to slay Rajung. His stride lengthened as a small orchard of fruit trees came into view. The trees were part of the Mahasagi’s private garden. Jayan was ready. The walk had prepared him. There would be no stopping him this time.
Jayan stopped. In the orchard, slightly obscured by the leaves and white blossoms, an aura of reflected sunlight illuminated the smooth head of a man. Jayan moved to the low wall bordering the orchard to get a closer look. His heart jumped. It was Najat.
Without a thought, Jayan jumped over the wall and ran into the orchard. Najat’s slow, contemplative steps followed a path in the opposite direction. “Ai, Najat!” Jayan yelled, but then he caught sight of the Mahasagi off to one side, flanked by Dechen and Rajung. Even at that distance Jayan could see the hint of alarm on their faces as they tracked his sudden appearance. Rajung moved immediately, starting toward him through the trees.
Jayan did not stop, but his sprint skidded down to a hesitant jog when he looked back at his brother. Najat had turned to stare at him. An inexplicable, scale-raising shiver of awe tripped Jayan down further to a walk. Najat stood wrapped and draped in the pale blue robes of a renunciate. It was not normal dress for the Kumasagi—he only wore the robes during sessions of intense mental and spiritual training. Jayan swallowed hard, acutely reminded that his younger brother was an old mystic, older than even their present lifetime.
He continued forward, ignoring Rajung’s footsteps and braving Najat’s cold posture. But then Najat moved a hand to shade the sun from his eyes, and suddenly his blank expression transformed to surprised recognition. Jayan broke into a run again as Najat’s trembling hands reached toward him.
“Jay-la!” Najat’s voice trembled a bit as well. He caught his brother’s hands between his own palms and bowed to rest his forehead against Jayan’s. The ancient gesture caused the scales at Jayan’s wrists to flare again, goose bumps following up his arms. It was another reminder…Najat could sense the pulse of Jayan’s spirit. Jayan could only sense the pulse of a vein in Najat’s brow.
Najat pulled back and smiled, but his eyes looked tired. Jayan noticed sharpened angles from cheekbone to ear and jaw to clavicle. “Are you alright?” he asked Najat for the second time in their lives.
“Yes.” The word came out with a rasp, scratching the smile from Najat’s lips. He cleared his throat.
“The virus…?”
“No, no.” Najat’s voice still rasped. “I recovered from that. Soon after they…moved me here. But then—” Najat looked over Jayan’s shoulder. Jayan turned to see Rajung standing near them.
Najat bent his head toward Rajung and brought his hands up in a mudra of unaffected respect. “Please let me have a moment,” he said. Rajung’s eyes stayed on Najat, but his head was cocked with an ear toward the Mahasagi. Finally he answered Najat with a silent bow, returning the mudra with great sincerity and then offering the same gesture to Jayan. He stepped backwards with palms pressed to his heart.
Jayan scrubbed absently at his still-prickled arms as he watched Rajung move out of earshot. “But then?” Jayan prompted Najat.
“It’s the mantras,” Najat said, touching his throat. “Part of training.” He paused, thinking. Then: “That is what came after the virus.”
“And this?” Jayan swept his hand to indicate Najat’s emaciated appearance.
“The training is…not easy.”
Jayan waited—his brother seemed to be thinking again. Najat gazed at the ground and brushed a hand over his scalp as if to arrange his thoughts.
“Making up for lost time, I suppose,” Najat finally said, referring to the Mahasagi. “He couldn’t offer the next level of initiations while I was still a diver.”
“So you aren’t going back. I wondered why they came for your things.”
Najat nodded, still watching the grass at his feet. “I’ll be with him full time now. He’s been wanting it…and now I understand why.”
“You’ve been training with him all along—”
“But I couldn’t give it my full attention. Not with part of my mind always swimming in the lake.” Najat grimaced. His words came up harsh from his scratched throat, “I should have moved over years ago. Now I have to make it up…”
“Make up for lost time. Right.” Jayan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was satisfied—the virus had not harmed Najat. “Well, I have something—some news—to tell you. I was wondering if you’d like to walk out to the wall.”
Najat looked up. It was their ritual, at the end of Jayan’s visits, to spend a day together walking the perimeter of the plateau. Jayan always revealed the goal of his next expedition during these farewell walks. “Yes, of course,” said Najat, disappointed that Jayan would be leaving so soon. He looked back toward the Mahasagi.
“Will they let you?” asked Jayan.
Najat did not answer directly. “I’ll have to change out of these robes. Wait here for me.” He padded back to where the Mahasagi stood, and Jayan watched the four of them—Najat, Tebhan, Dechen, and Rajung—discuss the idea of Najat going out. They did it without gestures, without emotion. They could have been chatting about the weather.
Najat turned and walked back, absently adjusting the blue cloth across his shoulder. Quirked lips dented one cheek as he reported to Jayan, “He wants me to keep this on.”
Another condition for allowing Najat the excursion was that they ride instead of walk. The Mahasagi’s private pedicab met them on the street past the theater. As they climbed into the seat, Najat glanced at the early afternoon sun and commented, “We won’t have time to make the full circuit.”
“We don’t need to,” Jayan said. He directed the pedaler, “Eastview Teahouse, please.”
Najat looked at him, surprised at the change in their routine.
Jayan grinned. “I’ll tell you everything when we get there.”
The pedicab took them back the way Jayan had walked in, only turning further north. Najat sat quietly watching the houses and trees go by. After a few blocks of this, Jayan—who had never been one to understand silence—broke Najat’s reverie with small talk. “Your friend Gavind tried to visit you.”
“Yes,” Najat said. “You also tried to visit.”
“Did Rajung tell you?”
“I…Knew. I just couldn’t…”
“It’s alright,” said Jayan, alarmed by the increasing gloom of Najat’s expression. “Gavind will be happy to see you again.” Jayan continued to chat about the divers and their recovery from the virus, and explained how the biologists at the university had singled out a sketch of a yellow-winged fly in one of Jayan’s notebooks and how they surmised that it was this insect that passed the virus to Jayan in the first place. He had been bitten several times.
The soliloquy seemed to help—Najat’s face relaxed and he nodded as he listened.
One of the doctors from Medical Arts theorized that the scratch on Jayan’s arm was the cause of the illness. Jayan had told them the scratch was from a broken branch on a large, thorny bush, and even though he had never seen that kind of plant before, he had forgotten to make a sketch of it. The doctor wondered if the plant was poisonous, but her theory was put down because the contagious aspect of the illness was more consistent with a virus.
Jayan quickly showed Najat the long purple scar on the underside of his right forearm, but then he dropped his arm out of sight and said, “I’m sure it was that yellow fly. The doctors had a grand time with me, trying to fix the fact that I still carried the virus. They gave me sliverbark to induce the symptoms, so the virus would run its course in me, like everyone else. That stuff makes you weak.”
“You let them do that?” Najat’s eyebrows went up.
“I know…I thought my arms would fall off, they hurt so much. But it worked. I was happy to go through it just to get out of there. They had me quarantined for a whole tenday!” Jayan’s personality did not sit well in a cage.
He continued, “I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but when I was out there near a mountain called Agalagiri, I stumbled on some manmade artifacts and the ruins of several buildings—they looked ancient. It’s completely uninhabited out there, so this is…I guess it’s a new discovery. I finally told Patal University about it after I got out of quarantine.”
“Why did you wait to tell them?”
“I couldn’t decide who to bring it to. There are politics involved—who gets to send their researchers out there, stake their claim and all that.”
“Are you going back there?”
“No!” Jayan said. He cleared his throat. “Someday I might visit again. Both universities are trying to draw up a joint research group. If they can agree on anything, the ruins will be swarming with their archeological teams. As it should be. I’m working with the map makers at Patal to show them the way, and then they can have at it.”
The pedicab found the edge of the plateau and followed a wide dirt path along the patchy eastern wall. They passed a few shops and cafes on their approach to the teahouse, as well as a few staring pedestrians. The Mahasagi’s elegant pedicab was recognizable. Soon a tail of curious onlookers wagged indiscreetly behind the cab—the locals wondered who was dying.
When the pedicab stopped in front of the Eastview, the escort of gawkers scattered. They peered from behind trees as the owner of the teahouse hurried out to meet the cab. “Ah, Gampoban-Saat!” she said, relieved to recognize Jayan—a regular during the past few tendays—as he stepped down from his seat. Then she saw Najat still sitting in the shadow of the canopy. “Ohhh!” She immediately deduced who he was by his resemblance to Jayan.
“Ai, Suchali,” Jayan greeted the woman. He took her arm to belay her excitement and bent to whisper a request in her ear.
She nodded with wide eyes and yelled in no particular direction, “Suchal!”
Her lanky teenaged son ran to her side from within the doorway. She stood on her toes to whisper instructions in his ear and then sent him back inside.
Suchali greeted Najat with reverence as he stepped out of the cab, “Kumasagi.”
He stopped in front of her and pressed his palms together at heart level, bowing slightly with a warm smile. Suchali blushed with pleasure behind her own mudra.
Jayan and Najat followed the tiny woman into her shop, a large open-air café with only a handful of patrons that lazy afternoon. The handful came to their feet and bowed as the Kumasagi walked by. Suchali led the men to the back where a sliding opaque screen opened to a wooden deck. Suchal crouched near the railing, spreading a thin woven mat in front of two plumped cushions. The boy collapsed into a kneeling prostration as Najat stepped onto the boards.
“Ah, no!” said Najat, “Stand, stand!” Suchal obeyed, his eyes lifting from the floor to Najat, then cutting to Jayan and then back to the floor, and then lifting again to steal another glance at each copper-flecked face, comparing them.
“Suchal, the tea!” his mother scolded. “Are you hungry?” she asked her guests as Suchal bolted past her.
While Jayan discussed menu options with Suchali, Najat moved to the edge of the deck where it offered a view over the city’s eastern wall. The plateau stepped down from the wall in uneven terraces, pebbled with more shops and houses. A small river traced along the bottom, partially blocked from Najat’s view by the staggered roofs and trees.
His eyes wandered over a string of gold-fluted roofs that marked the campus of Patal University. His mind wandered elsewhere. She had been in his dream that morning.
Guilt tapped at Najat’s throat. Tebhan was exasperated with Najat’s slow recovery from the encounter with Blue. The “training” was difficult. Najat felt his throat tighten even further—he had never lied to his brother before that moment in the orchard. There had been no mantras. His vocal chords were splintered from long sessions of screaming, muffled thoughtfully by Rajung with a strong armful of pillows.
“I love this view,” said Jayan.
Najat started slightly at his brother’s voice. Jayan stood beside him, having finished his menu requests with Suchali. They were alone for the moment.
Najat saw how Jayan’s eyes gazed straight ahead, past the houses and shops and the university and the river. His gaze even stepped over the valley beyond. Jayan was looking across to where the valley ended. He was looking at the mountains.
Najat knew this aspect of his brother well.
“Jay…”
Jayan looked back at him with that familiar, brightened expression. Najat gripped his arm and steered him to one side of the deck, where the branches of a tall tree reached high enough to shade them.
“Please sit,” Najat rasped, folding onto a wooden bench. Tightened fingers around his brother’s forearm brought Jayan down with him.
Jayan’s hand covered his. “Najat-la, you’re shaking.” But the shaking stopped at Jayan’s words—the Kumasagi had that much control. “Najat—”
“Jay,” Najat rushed in with his hoarse voice, “I have to go into retreat. A long retreat. I was hoping that when I’m out…” Najat’s eyes slid to his knees. “I hope you will come back to Shakti Lake then. This visit wasn’t…quite…”
“Wait, wait!” Jayan laughed. “I’m staying here! That’s what I was going to tell you!” His laughter was tinged with nervousness—Najat’s behavior concerned him. But when Najat looked up he was encouraged to continue, “They offered me a position at Patal. I will teach two geography courses. They’re moving my things from your dorm room today!”
Najat stared at him.
“I mean, I accepted the offer!” Jayan tumbled on, “The first course starts two tendays from now. I actually had offers from both, but Patal is the better university, I think. They’re giving me an apartment in the faculty quarters. So…you can visit me in my home!” Jayan laughed again, knowing it was hard to imagine. He had never lived in a place of his own.
Najat was certainly puzzled. “You’ll really live here? You’ll still be here when I come out of retreat?”
Jayan paused. “How long is your retreat?”
“Thirty and six.” Najat said it with resignation, not believing that Jayan could live in one place for a whole year.
“Ah…that is a long one.” Jayan glanced up at the tree limbs, calculating. “Yes, I’ll still be here in a year.” He grinned at Najat, who seemed to need reassurance. “I’ll be here!”
The blue robes shifted as Najat hunched to rest his head in his hands. His eyes were covered with fingers as his mouth spoke, “I’m glad.”
“I should show you where I am at Patal so you can find me next year. Do you want to have lunch there tomorrow? I can come pick you up.”
Najat did not answer. He sat unmoving with his face still partially covered.
The pause was too long for Jayan. He repeated, “Tomorrow…?”
The Kumasagi grimaced and pressed one hand to his chest as if he had a pain there. The other hand still hid his eyes as he struggled to speak, “I…can’t. I’m leaving for the retreat.”
“Najat, you—”
“I’m leaving tonight.”
“You don’t seem well,” Jayan blurted.
Najat’s shoulders sagged around the hand still at his chest. The curve of his back caught a large patch of sunlight, turning the blue fabric white.
Clinking dishes startled Jayan. Suchal had returned to the mat. Suchali’s voice trailed after him, “Only now with the tea? Uf!”
Jayan rose quickly to stand in front of Najat.
Suchali arrived bearing trays of food and set about arranging their meal on the mat as Suchal set out the tea. The boy weathered another scolding for his placement of napkins—he was occupied with stolen glimpses of their famous guests. Jayan stole a glance himself and was relieved to see Najat sitting up again. The Kumasagi gazed toward the back entrance of the teahouse.
“Saat! Saati,” Suchali greeted someone at the screen. It was Dechen and Rajung. They returned her greeting kindly but were quick to move across the deck. Rajung positioned himself at Najat’s side, and only then did Najat stand up.
“The Mahasagi sends his apologies,” Dechen addressed Jayan. “His Eminence is needed at the temple.”
“Ohhh!” said Suchali. “Take care of this,” she commanded Suchal, pointing at the tray of food. She jumped up to lead Rajung and Najat out through the teahouse. When Jayan moved as well, gentle fingers fell across his wrist.
“Do not follow,” Dechen whispered. Her pale green eyes caught and held him. “You will see the Kumasagi again…at a better time.”
When he tried to move toward the door screen again, her fingers closed firmly around his wrist. She cut her eyes toward the thin back of the boy Suchal, who knelt at the mat with a paused lunch dish in each hand. Suchal stole a quick glance over his shoulder and realized that they were both watching him. He arranged the dishes with a clattering flurry of hands and then hustled back into the teahouse.
Jayan gently but firmly removed Dechen’s hand from his arm. “Now I know that Najat isn’t well enough to be out,” he said in low tones. “Why did the Mahasagi let him go with me?”
“It was good for the Kumasagi to see you, as it was good for you to see him. He will be away for a long time.”
“But what is wrong with him?”
“The Kumasagi’s training is difficult, Gampoban-Saat. This is a time of transition for him. But I assure you that he will be well the next time you see him.”
“But when will that be?” Jayan said.
Dechen just looked at him.
Jayan scrubbed one hand through his hair and pouted. “I guess I’m not used to being the one who’s left behind on the plateau.”
“The Kumasagi never felt left behind by you,” Dechen said. She slapped her hands together in a mudra and performed a clipped bow to Jayan. “Be well.” Then she turned and walked back into the teahouse.
Jayan stood rooted to the deck as the air fell suddenly quiet. But then he heard a faint crunch of pedicab wheels and ran over to the railing to peer out past the side of the teahouse. He caught a glimpse of the Mahasagi’s pedicab, and another that must have brought Dechen and Rajung, as they passed behind the trees on the inside of the eastern wall.
“Guess I’ll be walking home, then,” he muttered. He returned to the backside of the deck and dropped himself in front of Suchal’s sloppily arranged dishes. They overflowed with mounds of fried zucchini and curried potatoes, fish rolls and red fried rice. There was a deep crock of Suchali’s famous brown bean casserole, which probably could have served six people.
Jayan held a fish roll in one hand and contemplated Dechen’s words. Who was she to know what Najat had ever said or thought? Did she really know Najat that well? Jayan figured he knew his brother just as well or better.
But he had seen them communicate to each other with barely a word or expression. He put the fish roll back down with a grunt. He would never attempt to understand the ways of such mystics, even if his brother was one of them. Najat had been part of that world since the age of nine, when Mahasagi Tebhan recognized the aberration—the only surviving second-born child of their time—as his twin soul and successor. In truth, Najat had been a part of that world for many lifetimes.
Suchal returned to the deck like a silent phantom and sat down on the furthest bench from Jayan. He waited quietly with his hands wrapped around his knees, until Jayan noticed him and summoned him over.
“You’ve never seen the Kumasagi before, eh?” Jayan said. “What did you think of him?”
Suchal smiled quickly, but then frowned and crinkled his webbed hands together, as if sensing that it might be a loaded question.
Jayan picked up the fish roll again. “I’m going to have a go at this feast here. I might even have room for a slice of ginger cake, if your ama has it on the menu today.”
Suchal nodded but didn’t move. His eyes met Jayan’s, and for once the boy did not look away. Jayan could see questions brimming in Suchal’s eyes—but the questions were not for him.
“We’ll see the Kumasagi again,” Jayan said.
Suchal cleared his throat. “I’ll get your cake.”
The boy left the deck while Jayan turned back to his fish roll. He examined the roll from all angles without really seeing it. He thought about the one thing he hadn’t had the chance to tell Najat. The reason Jayan was willing to settle at Patal University for a year, or even more, was that he had finally decided to shop for a wife.