“I’m not sure I do myself,” Alea confessed.
“Nor I,” Gar agreed, “but we managed to get across the basic concept of the Tao and people’s proper place in it.”
“So tomorrow we work on how they gain and lose that place?” Alea asked with a grin.
“A good strategy.” Gar nodded. “We might mention why they should want to.”
“All very interesting,” Mira called from the campfire, “but the stew is ready.”
Gar and Alea stared at one another, then burst out laughing.
The serfs came back the next day, still in hiding—only there were eight of them now. Gar and Alea batted paradoxes back and forth like tennis balls while Blaize and Mira demonstrated how to put yourself in harmony with the Way by doing the camp chores. By the forth day there were fifteen peasants, and the youngest ones were edging closer and closer to the limit of the yew bush and the rock pile, perilously close to being clearly visible.
“Shall we give them the final nudge?” Gar asked. “Let’s,” Alea said with a mischievous grin.
10
Alea took up the pouches of colored sand they’d collected for the occasion.
Gar tied a string to two pegs, tapped one into the ground for a center, then inscribed a circle in the dirt with the other. Alea sprinkled yellow sand in a tadpole shape that occupied one half of the circle, swelling from nothing at its tail to a bulbous head. Then she sprinkled red sand in the other half, so that she had two tadpoles, nestled head to tail, making up a complete circle. She dropped a little red to make a tiny circle for the yellow tadpole’s eye and used yellow sand for the red tadpole’s eye.
“Yellow is masculine, red is feminine,” Gar intoned.
“Each holds within it the seed of the other,” Alea answered. “The masculine element is hot, dry, mechanical, and active.”
“The feminine element,” said Alea, “is cool, moist, organic, and passive.”
Gar put a finger beside the edge of the circle at the midpoint of the yellow tadpole, which was also the midpoint of the red. “When both are in balance, the world is peaceful and prosperous.”
The youngest serfs began edging out of hiding, craning their necks to see.
Gar traced a finger along the edge toward the yellow tadpole’s head. “When the masculine element grows to take up most of the circle, though, governments are tyrannical. No one can think for themselves; everyone does what the king commands. There is always food, but the serfs are kept poor by high taxes.”
The young folk crept closer. The older ones began to sneak out from cover.
Alea moved her finger to trace the red tadpole to its head. “When the feminine element takes up most of the circle, there is no government. Lords are constantly fighting one another, killing the serfs and trampling the crops, keeping people poor.”
The young serfs crept closer, so intent on seeing the Great Monad that they didn’t realize their shadows were falling across it. “Only when there is balance are the people free, with the chance to find their own happiness,” Gar said.
“Only when there is harmony can people be prosperous and safe,” said Alea.
Mira came up behind one of the older serfs and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “You might as well sit down, you know. They love answering questions.”
The serf jumped as though he’d just stepped on a live wire. “You’re all welcome here,” Blaize told the people in the rock pile, “if you really want to learn. Oh, and when you’re done, you might take a hand with the sweeping.”
The serfs stared at him. Then, one by one, they came out from hiding. “Are—are you sure?” a middle-aged woman asked. “Of course,” Blaize said. “They’ve known you were there for days—”
She stared in fright. “Are they… are they magicians?”
“Not as we usually think of them,” Blaize said. “They’re sages.”
“Sit down,” Alea invited one of the younger serfs, “and ask your questions.”
The girl sat down at the side of the circle, warily, hesitantly. The boy beside her sat down, too, slowly. “How do you find harmony?” the girl asked.
“By putting yourself in balance,” Alea answered.
A young man sat down on the other side of the circle, giving the impression of a rabbit about to bolt. “How do you find balance?”
“By seeking harmony with the Way,” Gar replied.
A young woman sat down beside the young man, frowning. “What is this Way you keep talking about?”
Their elders came up behind them, wary but intent.
“The Way includes all things that exist,” Alea explained. “Everything came from it; everything returns to it, as the rivers flow home to the sea.”
“But the sea is never full,” Gar said, “and the Way is empty.”
“But it never needs filling,” Alea said, “for everything is in harmony.” An older man frowned. “How can it be empty and full at the same time?”
“Because it is a paradox,” Gar said, “an apparent contradiction.”
“But only apparent,” Alea reminded them. “It’s like a puzzle, and there’s always a way to solve it.”
“How?” the man asked, totally bewildered.
“By experiencing the Way,” Alea told him. “You can’t really talk about it, for as soon as you do, as soon as you even give it a name, you limit it, and it isn’t really the Way anymore—because the Way is limitless.”
A girl asked, “So if I call it the Way, I’ve lost track of it?”
“Yes,” Gar said, “but we have to call it something, and ‘way’ is about as vague as we can get and still have a name.”
“But as soon as you name it, it stops being what you named?” an older woman asked.
“That’s right.” Gar beamed at her. “Any name you can give it won’t fit long, because it’s always changing.”
“But it’s always the same, too,” Alea put in, “because it’s the source of everything.”
“But I want to find out what it is!” the boy objected.
“Then you’ll find what you expect to find,” Gar told him, “but it won’t be the real Way.”
The older man frowned. “So we can only find it by not looking for it?”
“Exactly!” Alea clapped her hands with delight. “You have to wait until it finds you.”
“But how,” the young woman asked, totally perplexed, “will we know when it does?”
“Believe me,” said Alea, “you’ll know.”
The serfs left an hour later, confused but inspired.
“They won’t come back, will they?” Mira asked mournfully. “Are you joking?” Gar asked. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to them in years!”
“Learning is always exciting.” Blaize beamed, giving the impression that he was about to start bouncing. “I can hardly wait for tomorrow!”
Mira eyed him warily.
Gar decided to build a pavilion to shelter their students from the sun and rain, so he took Blaize downslope to hunt up some reasonably sized deadwood. Mira started making dinner, looking pensive.
“What’s the matter, lass?” Alea asked gently.
Mira looked up, startled, then dropped her gaze again. “Oh, it’s—it’s nothing, Alea.”
“Nothing named Blaize?” Alea smiled. “He bothers you, doesn’t he?”
Reluctantly, Mina nodded.
“More doubts because he’s a magician?”
“No, because he says he wants to be a good man as well as a good magician!” Mira looked up, eyes blazing. “Can he really mean it, Alea? Or was he just spinning a fable, putting on a show to make me think he’s really trying?”
“Oh, he’s sincere,” Alea said. “You can feel the emotions leaking out of him. He means what he says.”