When she had looked, she let her hand touch it, lightly, delicately, learning again (but not remembering) its irregular lumpy shape. She bent slowly to smell it, the curious and indescribable scent of stone, with behind it the smell of the water, and other stones. Something more sweet also scented the air, now that she was attending to smell, but she rested her attention on the stone.
When she was quite still, unhurried and unaware of waiting, he was there, in the pavilion. Venerable Master Adept, who had a name that no one spoke in this place, where names meant nothing and essence was all. When she became consciously aware of him, she realized he had been there for a time. What time she did not know, and it did not matter. What mattered was her mind's control of itself, its ability to engage or withdraw at her will. He would be ready when she was ready; she would be ready when he was ready. She heard a drop of water fall, and realized that the fountain was on. She bowed to the rock, her mind completely easy for the first time in too many years (for even in coldsleep she had been willing to worry, if not capable of it), and moved slowly along the path. Thoughts moved in her mind, like the carp in the pool. She let them move, let some rise almost to the surface, their scaled beauty clear, while others hung motionless, mere shapes below the surface.
This was the center of the world - of her world - of the world of every Adept, this place that was, in a physical sense, not the center of anything. Embarrassment had no place, with the Master Adept. She knelt across the little table from Him, no longer aware that her worn workclothes from Ireta (however cleaned and smartened up by Sassinak's crew) were different from his immaculate white robe. His sash this day was aswirl with greens and blues and purples… a single thread of sulphur yellow. Her eye followed that thread, and then returned to his hands, as they gently touched petal-thin cups and saucers. He offered one, and she took it. Even in the subdued light within the pavilion, the cup seemed to glow. She could feel the warmth of the tea through it; that fragrance soothed.
After a time, he raised his cup, and sipped, and she did the same. They said nothing, for nothing needed to be said at this time. They shared the silence, the tea, the small pool where water fell tinkling from a fountain and carp dimpled the water from underneath.
Lunzie might have thought how very different this was, from the world she had just left, but such thoughts were unnecessary. What was necessary was recognition, appreciation, of the beauty before her. As she watched the carp, sipping her tea at intervals, a novice came silently to the pool and threw a handful of crumbs. The carp rose in a flurry of fins; a tiny splash broke the random song of the fountain. The novice retired.
The Master Adept spoke, his voice hardly louder than that splash. "It is what we identify as lost which brings us into concern, Adept Lunzie. When one knows that one owns nothing, nothing can be lost, and nothing mourned."
Her mind shied from that as from hot metaclass="underline" instant rejection. He had never had a child, and they had had this discussion before.
"I am not speaking of your child," he said. "A mother's instinct is beyond training… so it must be. But the years you have lost, that you call yours: no one owns time, no one can claim even an instant."
Her heart steadied again. She could feel the heat in her face; it would have betrayed her. That shame made her blush again.
"Venerable Master… what I feel… is confusion."
It was safest to say what one felt, not what one thought. More than one tradition had gone into the concept of Discipline, and the Venerable Master had a Socratic ability to pursue a lame thought to its lair and finish it off. She dared to look at him; he was watching her with those bright black eyes in which no amusement twinkled. Not now.
"Confused? Do you perhaps believe that you can claim time as your own?"
"No, Venerable Master. But…"
She tried to sort out her thoughts. She had not seen him for so long… what would he know, and not know, about what had happened to her? How could he help if she did not explain everything? Part of her early training as a novice had been in organizing and relating memories and events. She called this up, and found herself reciting the long years adventures calmly, softly, as if they had been written by someone else about a stranger's life.
He listened, not interrupting even by a shift of expression that might have affected her ability to recall and report what had happened. When she was through, he nodded once.
"So. I can understand your confusion, Adept Lunzie. You have been stretched and bent past the limits of your training. Yet you remained the supple reed; you did not break."
That was acceptance, and even praise. This time the warmth that rushed over her brought comfort to cramped limbs and to spaces of her mind still sore despite Cleansing the Stone. She had been sure he would say she had failed, that she was unfit to be an Adept.
"Our training," he was saying, "did not consider the peculiar strains of those with repeated temporal displacements, even though you brought the original problem to our attention. We should have foreseen the need, but…" he shrugged. "We are not gods, to know all we have not yet seen. Again, you have much to teach us, as we help you regain your balance."
"I live to learn, Venerable Master," said Lunzie, bowing her head.
"We learn by living; we live by learning."
She felt his hand on her head, the rare touch of approval, affirmation. When she looked up again, he was gone and she was alone in the pavilion with her thoughts.
Retraining, after that, was both more and less stressfull than she had feared. Her pallet in the sleeping hut was comfortable enough after Ireta and she had never minded plain food. But it had been a long time since she'd actually done all the physical exercises; she spent the first days constantly sore and weary.
All the Instructors were perfectionists; there was only one right way (they reminded her) to make each block, each feint, each strike. Only one right way to sit, to kneel, to keep the inner center balanced. She had never been as good with the martial skills of Discipline; she had always thought them less fitting for a physician. But she had never been this bad. Finally one of them put her at rest, and folded herself down nearby.
"I sense either unwillingness or great resistance of the body, Lunzie. Can you explain?"
"Both, I think," Lunzie began slowly, letting her breathing slow. "As a healer, I'm committed to preserving health; this side of Discipline always seems a failure to me… something we haven't done right, that let things come to conflict. And then some physician - perhaps me, perhaps another - will have to work to heal what we break."
"That is the unwillingness," said the instructor. "What is the body's difficulty? Only that?"
"I'm not sure." Lunzie started to slump, and reminded herself to balance her spine properly. "I would like to think it is the many times in coldsleep - the long times, when I spent years in one position. Supposedly there's no aging, but there's such stiffness on waking. Perhaps it does something, some residual loss of flexibility."