User:Yuanchosaan/Without Surcease/Chapter 3

{|width="60%" align="center" Forgiveness

Steam rose from the bowls of rice as she carried them down to the cool of the cavern. The rice was brown, with the husks still on them, rather than the white Nam Mo had grown up with, but the fragrance of cooked rice always filled her with nostalgia anyway. Next to them on the wooden tray was a plate of stir-fried greens in chilli sauce, a dish of the fried lotus root, and a small pot of fermented tofu.

One bowl of rice had been heaped taller than the other. Nam Mo figured that Ghost-who-was-Queen would be hungry after ten thousand years.

“Good evening, Queen,” Nam Mo greeted her cheerfully. She placed the tray on the ground and bowed, less deeply than she had the previous times.

“You again.” Despite her words, Ghost-who-was-Queen had lifted her head to respond immediately. Nam Mo took this as a good sign.

“Yes. I told you I would return.” She took her own bowl of rice, added some vegetables, and then placed it beside her mat. Then, holding her breath, she used her walking stick to push the tray over the innermost circle. Ghost-who-was-Queen ignored the tray, her eyes following Nam Mo’s movements. She made no move to attack.

“What is this?”

“I brought you some rice. Would you like to share an evening meal with me?”

“You are aware, of course,” Ghost-who-was-Queen’s cool voice had dropped several degrees in temperature, “that I do not need to eat.”

“Needing and wanting are different things. That is why I am here.”

“Why? And I thought that was because you were going to save me.”

“Saving and salving are also two different things.” She picked up a single grain of rice in her chopsticks, holding it up between them to examine it critically. “Hunger is honest, don’t you think? It must be acknowledged. Whether it is hunger for food or companionship.”

Ghost-who-was-Queen watched her motionlessly. Nam Mo popped the grain of rice into her mouth, and then began eating in earnest.

“You should watch what you imply, little nun.”

“Oh, I never imply,” Nam Mo said cheerfully through a mouthful of food. “Waste of everyone’s time. Easier to say things outright. I’m here because you’re lonely, Queen.”

The muscles in Ghost-who-was-Queen’s face flickered rapidly, half-forming unreadable emotions. Her lips parted slightly, in silence. Then a sound like the wind through chimes of bone emerged from her.

“Such arrogance,” she hissed, once she had ceased laughing, “to offer yourself as a companion to queens. What makes you think that you possess anything that I would find even briefly entertaining, let alone worthy enough to be my companion?”

“I could tell you stories.”

“Stories? Simple parables for the feeble-minded, no doubt, meant to placate superstitious peasants.”

Nam Mo said nothing. She knew more of sutras than fables. Days spent reciting passages on the meaning of time and reality, transcribing the Buddha’s words, transforming them into intricate designs. Fables had been a gift from Aunty when Nam Mo was young, stories told to her at the end of the day by Aunty as she rocked Nam Mo’s sister to sleep.

“I could tell you stories of my travels,” she offered instead.

“Your travels? To what? More miserable villages? Wooden temples? I have seen the greatest cities in the world. Perhaps next you will offer to perform a charming folk ballad for me, or an instructional hymn?”

The temple in Sanyu had been built of wood: seamless, without a nail or plate, chased by carvings. Red walls, rising impossibly high to distant paintings. She had loved how the rafters seemed to swell with music when the monks sang together, and the way the bells filled the temple with warmth. They always sang together.

“I have a flute. My skill is small, but-”

“Do not mock me. The greatest of musicians have begged to perform before me. A musician? I could have an orchestra in a moment if I desired. I have seen Tasshon make a cello cry in a hall of crystal.”

Nam Mo allowed Ghost-who-was-Queen to finish, then calmly continued, “My skill is small, but if you wish it, I will do my best.”

“And can you do your best to debate matters of philosophy and art with me? Do you know how to quote the Thirteen Treatises, or the Histories of the Empires? Once, I had the most brilliant scholars of the realm at my beck and call. Can you construct an argument as they would, or illuminate the meaning of a great work?” The growing intensity in Ghost-who-was-Queen’s voice echoed strangely against the cadence of her dead tones. “Or perhaps you are a secretly an artist as well? I have seen countless wonders: jewelled eggs that opened into dancing machinery more delicate than lace, crystals that held the light of stars, confections of bone and magic and steel. Will you surpass those? Or perhaps you will attempt to woo me with a portrait of myself.”

A sigh. “How many sought to win my favour with those. If I didn’t have to avoid offending the givers, I would have had Taoris burn them all…save the one that Sanadus and Noltia painted together as children.”

“What would you rather have had?”

“Maps.” The ghost of a smile curved her lips. “An afternoon of my own. Perhaps to spend in the library. Or perhaps to sneak away with Asearya once more. As beautiful as my city was, it never looked sweeter than when it did not know my face.”

The smile faded. Ghost-who-was-Queen looked at her with eyes that were almost human. “You make me remember.”

“I do.” She counted the names, repeating their strange syllables to herself. Only one was left. “Who was Vainia?”

“Vainia.” She closed her eyes. Nam Mo realised she had never seen Ghost-who-was-Queen blink before. Without opening them, she said, almost too quietly to hear, “It has been a very long time since I have been called that.”

When she opened her eyes again, the humanity had faded. A hungry ghost looked out through eyes of molten gold, with despair as black as her sclera. “But it’s all gone now.”

“Things could change,” Nam Mo said gently.

“They never will again.”

“Even if you cannot reclaim what you have lost, happiness of some kind may be yours again.”

“No. I cannot end and be born again. Not now. Not ever.” The sound of metal as chain links coiled tighter around her neck. “And even if I could…the same mistakes would happen.”

Nam Mo looked down at her half-eaten bowl of rice. She placed it to one side, then unrolled the pallet she had brought along. “I’m going to bed now,” she announced. “Good night, Queen.”

She fell asleep to the distant trickling of the spring echoing through the hill. It sounded like weeping.

☸

When she awoke the next morning, the bowl of rice was empty.

To be continued