Awakening is not the Ultimate, it is simply the fulfilled flower from which the seeker of wisdom can mature and fruit. It is the platform from which the Ultimate can be perceived.
To let the mind be still is the first step toward perceiving the ultimate. To see one's shattras, those which control the play, is the second step, beginning with the two luminous aspects of one's self; to merge one's shattras is the third; and to merge with one's shattras, Awaken to Hrum-In-Thee and see the universe as it is, is the fourth.
Even in Hrumma, most do not attain the first, and even in the monastery some do not attain the second. Of those who attain the second, only a few attain the third. Of those few however, most attain the fourth, and we say of them that they have Awakened, and we dub them masters.
After having Awakened, one grows simply by living, observing life with the viewpoint of the Awakened.
And as a master returns repeatedly to the inner Hrum, dwelling in trance on the other side, his perception sharpens on both sides. Little by little he is able to do knowingly what he could not knowingly do before. But regardless of how far one progresses in that manner, that is not the Ultimate.
The Ultimate is the condition you began at and never left.
—Panni Vempravvo to a crowd gathered at the Grandfather Tree at Harvest Festival in the Year of the Sullsi.
* * *
It was dusk when Eltrienn arrived at the hut above the firth and peered in through the open door. Only three men were there, fewer than before. Vessto was reading in front of the fireplace. Meditation hadn't gone well recently; trances eluded him.
"Brother," said Eltrienn quietly.
Vessto looked up, brightening. He went to the door, taking Eltrienn's arm, and led him around the outside of the hut to a bench at one end, with a view of the ridge across the firth. Eltrienn shook his head. "What I want to tell you is confidential; I can't have it overheard."
Vessto nodded, and they hiked up the narrow path to his outcrop, where they sat down together in the twilight.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," Eltrienn said, "on an extended assignment." He paused. "I'd like you to come with me; I need someone of your abilities. A holy man. A sage."
Vessto's face went somber. "Brother, I am no holy man, no sage. I see that now. Though perhaps I approached it. I am no more than an adept, favored with prescience." He examined Eltrienn's face and the surface of his mind, its tone, its color. All were neutral, telling him little. Eltrienn nodded acknowledgement.
"Such holiness as I may have had," Vessto went on, "I gave up to save Hrumma. One cannot take a banner, one cannot polarize as I have, and be close to Hrum."
The soldier face remained neutral, and almost the voice. "Then bring your banner and come with me. To the barbarian lands." He raised a hand to deter objection. "The nearer danger is not Almeon. It's Gorrbul."
He described then what had been learned about the emperor's plan, beyond what Vessto had read in Brokols' mind. "If Rantrelli succeeds in bringing down the amirr, it will damage what chance we have to save Hrumma and the worship of Hrum. If you leave with me, you can help, and Rantrelli's movement will wither and the."
Vessto sat silent a thoughtful moment. A realization had come to him: When he listened to the minds of men, too often he failed to hear Hrum. And from men's minds he garnered only knowledge; it was from Hrum that wisdom came. Well, now he would listen to Eltrienn; his access to Hrum seemed inoperative these days.
"What is your assignment?" he asked.
Eltrienn told him how the exchange of weapons for lumber and charcoal had halted. "I'm to see it renewed," he said. "And after that, I'm to stay with Killed Many, be of whatever help he's willing to have. Get him to move as soon as I can—surely before winter—and if possible before the Gorballis move against us."
Vessto looked long at him, feeling Eltrienn's sense of uncertainty, suspense, of no foreseeable result. "And what good will that do?" he asked.
Eltrienn shook his head. "I don't know. The amirr doesn't know. But if we sit here and wait, the Gorballis will attack, and may very well conquer, for Gamaliiu has a general of the Almites to advise him. Probably he will have thunder weapons. And while the Gorrbian army is here, the emperor's fleet will land at Haipoor l'Djezzer and seize the Gorrbian throne.
"Rantrelli would have us act like a yart surrounded by varks, that tears open its own belly with its claws. Suicide.
"We have no complete plan. But if we can upset and dislocate the emperor's, perhaps a road out will present itself. You said it: If we do all that we possibly can, as if there could be no help, perhaps Hrum will provide."
He stopped talking then, waiting for Vessto to respond. And Vessto realized that he'd ceased to believe his own prophecy. He'd really fallen from the grace of Hrum.
"What good can I be to you?" he asked.
"I'm to take an adept with me. I'd prefer it was you. The barbarians honor Hrum too, in their way. The clans have holy men, shamans, that they consult before battle. I don't know as much as I'd like to about them, but I believe they'd recognize you as a holy man."
Vessto sat gazing across the firth for perhaps half a minute. "I'll go," he said. His words had no energy, no confidence, no strength. "I'll go," he repeated.
Hearing the tone of Vessto's voice, it occurred to Eltrienn that he might have made a mistake, that perhaps Vessto wasn't the man to take. But instead of backing out, he asked, "Where shall I meet you? Can you be at the main gate of the Fortress when the morning sun reaches it?"
"Yes. But if I'm to go, there's something important I have to do in town tonight. Wait for ten minutes and I'll ride in behind you on your kaabor."
He went into the hut then, and Eltrienn waited outside the door, heartened a bit because Vessto seemed to have gained energy from somewhere. Ten minutes later, his few needed belongings in a packsack of woven reeds, Vessto was ready to leave. Half of that ten minutes had been spent talking to the one disciple who was not in a trance. Then the brothers went to Eltrienn's kaabor. Eltrienn swung up into the saddle, reached down, hoisted Vessto up behind him, and they rode into Theedalit together.
* * *
It had been a busy two days for Brokols and Venreeno. The question of a sulfur supply had been solved the first morning; it had been no problem. At the same time he'd gotten to know, and Reeno had hired, an herbalist, Amaadio Akrosstos. Akrosstos had agreed to work with them on identifying and isolating saltpeter and producing gunpowder.
In Hrumma and the Djezes, herbalists were not only the pharmacists. They were alchemists, in the sense of doing empirical research with not only plant but animal and mineral materials, directed mostly at producing pharmaceuticals. In the process they'd accumulated a large body of general chemical information and technique, though without any comprehensive conceptual scheme to fit it into and theorize from.
Meanwhile Reeno had sent a man with a cart to the Tuuchei Gorge caves to get a load of nightbird dung.
Amaadio, with Reeno and Brokols, had developed a list of what he needed for the work, and Reeno had prepared a certificate of credit for him.
On the second morning, before sunup, Brokols, Amaadio, and Reeno had ridden out to visit an abandoned fishing hamlet, Hidden Haven, about three hours ride south of the city. It had seemed to Reeno to be a possible site for their explosives research, and after examining it they decided it would do. When they got back to Theedalit that afternoon, Reeno arranged for its temporary use and to get the road to it rebuilt.
* * *
As Brokols sat down at the telegraph key that evening, Venreeno sat beside him as if to monitor his message. Brokols couldn't see what good that could possibly do the man, who knew neither Almaeic nor telegraph code. He needn't worry, Brokols told himself. He slid the circuit closer aside, and tapped the "in service and waiting" signal through 300 miles of atmosphere to clang Kryger's signal bell in Haipoor l'Djezzer. They waited for two or three minutes before anything happened. Then Kryger's acknowledgement came, followed immediately by a minute-long rattling of the sounder while Brokols' pencil lettered the incoming message.
* * *
THE DARD WILL ANCHOR AT THEEDALIT DAY AFTER TOMORROW STOP ARGANT WILL COME ASHORE AND CONSULT WITH YOU STOP MEET HIM AT THE DOCK STOP ACKNOWLEDGE STOP END
* * *
Day after tomorrow?! Hurriedly Brokols scribbled his reply, then put down his pencil and positioned his hand at the key; his sending finger began to tap, his lips moving as he sent.
"Message received. Stop. Strongly urge that ship anchor outside firth, repeat, outside firth. Stop. Sea serpents raising newborn in firth this season. Stop. Are considered sacred. Stop. They fled at entrance of Dard earlier, which upset the Hrummeans. Stop. It is now known here that the Dard killed two serpents. Stop. If ship enters and serpents abandon young to flee, severe local reaction probable. Stop. Brokols end."
Kryger's reply was virtually immediate, as if he'd composed it while sending.
* * *
ACKD STOP BE AT DOCK TO MEET ARGANT STOP KRYGER END COMM
* * *
Kryger sat steaming, his jaw clenched, its muscles bulging like pahlnuts. Brokols had even managed to leak the killing of the two sea monsters! The man was a hopeless fool! He'd wireless Argant and Stedmer and tell them definitely to remove him. No option.
* * *
"Meet Argant at dock." Brokols knew, as surely as if he'd been told, that Kryger was sending Argant to replace him. There wasn't the slightest doubt in his mind.
And he was just as sure that Kryger would not tell Stedmer to anchor outside the firth. For several minutes he brooded, then with abrupt decision jotted another message, dialed the ship's frequency, and sent the "in service and waiting signal." Three minutes passed before he was acknowledged.
His sending finger began to move, informing the ship of the situation with the serpents, instructing them to anchor outside the firth and send Argant in in the captain's pinnace.
All he got was an acknowledgement, with neither agreement nor rejection, or even any comment.
* * *
After Eltrienn had let him off at a sidestreet, Vessto strode down it, alone and purposeful, to a tall but otherwise ordinary apartment building, with shops on its ground floor silent and dark. He climbed the outside stairs to the roof. Dim smoky light shone from its small penthouse, where a holy man sat crosslegged outside the door. Vessto went across to it and stepped inside. Old Tassi Vermaatio sat there in beatific meditation on a prayer mat.
The Trumpet of Hrum put down his pack against the wall, walked over, and sat down in a full lotus to one side of the ancient sage, facing his profile.
This time he knew a trance would not elude him. He relaxed, breathed deliberately, slowly, as he'd been taught as a child. His eyes ceased to focus in the universe outside him. Briefly he observed vagrant thoughts float by, letting them pass until there were no more. His remaining tenseness had passed with them.
Shortly he perceived his principal aspects, his Kirsan and Nasrik, two softly glowing eyes already nearly touching one another. He bade them unite, and they became two in one. Then he perceived his life guides, his Zan and Naz, soft pyramidal luminescences; they too he bade unite, and they did. Kaz and Zak, they who provide, showed themselves as pale luminous cubes; and they became two in one. Then the Kozziu appeared, givers of energy, half a dozen vibrating triangles flickering with rainbow tints, seeming energetic beyond constraint; they merged by pairs and became three.
All of these aspects Vessto had seen before, though infrequently and not since he'd left the monastery. They had always appeared in pairs and sometimes had touched, but never had their pairs fully merged before. Now a single opalescent pearl displayed itself. It was new to Vessto, and he realized that he was outside the universe perceiving himself.
He'd long understood that his existence in the world of phenomena grew out of these luminescences, his shattras. Now he knew it beyond understanding.
Amusement swelled. All the luminescences moved to the pearl, and they touched, pulsed, became one, to take the form of a single, twelve-faceted crystalloid pulsing softly with silver light. He contemplated it, and as he did, the he that watched seemed to expand, to absorb it, and felt a sense of one-ness, power, wisdom. And laughed, the laughter bubbling from some great depth.
Then Tassi was floating farther off as another crystalloid, and Panni as yet another, both laughing with him. A golden glow formed, seemed to envelop him, and he went beyond later remembrance.
When Vessto became aware again, his body still sat upright in the dim, silent room. Unfolding his legs, he arose, went to the door, picked up his pack, and stepped out onto the roof, chuckling softly. Eastward the silver light of dawn had begun to thin the stars. He chuckled all the way to the square, where he arrived while the last stars were fading.