Von flipped through page after page, skimming images in his mind as much as words on paper. The letters, one for each day of his captivity, were not so much letters as they were conversations, the sort of conversation that if overheard by a stranger, would not be given a second thought, but when imagined by the father from the son would not have been exchanged for all the world. Yet, the letters were not really conversations, they were prayers, or, as was called in the Tao, meditative prayers. There was a difference. Prayer was a plea, passive, something your grandmother did; meditative prayer a deed, active, and effective in ways beyond common comprehension. The Tao believed that meditative prayer could reach beyond space and time and shape events. His son had spent more than three years absorbed in that belief.
Von closed the tome as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath as if he had forgotten how. In an instant, his universe changed as if the pages of the Imprimatur Rubious had rubbed the sleep from his eyes and for the first time he saw not with dreams.
A thousand thoughts ran through his mind, not the least that he had survived captivity, not of his own will as he had thought, but with assistance from afar. Moments from the edge flooded the chasm of his memory as he recalled standing between this life and the next one, wanting to slip away into the peace of the night. At each of those moments he had found strength, had remembered the sensation of a cool breeze pushing him gently back to safety. He had thought little of those sensations at the time. Now, he realized a love, as deep as the regret welling in his bosom, and he cursed himself for the ignorance or pride that clouded his view at the time. And he marveled. Three years. Not a day missed. Letter after letter, all in longhand, painstakingly rendered not as word to paper but as Love to father.
Von opened his eyes and looked down without moving his head as if he could hide behind his quarter-opened lids. Glowing red, filling the room with sacred light, a small disc, no larger than the tip of his finger, silently and slowly grew brighter and dimmer as if each exchange was a breath, as if the disc were alive, as if it begged to be touched and opened. The disc was a holographic version of the letters, a version that would, when activated, appear in 3-D before him, the pages breathing in light as if alive from floor to ceiling in folio fashion, which could be turned with hand or eye.
With a wave of his hand, the holographic folio opened and the room filled with light. Opening the volume to a random page, Von walking into the light, his hands swimming in the sea of illumination as the words appeared to move as fish in shallow water. On the right-hand side, he spied what appeared to be a watermark, about the same size as his face. Gently leaning his countenance into the mark, Von felt as if he had touched an open circuit, his face felt wet and a scent of sea air filled his nostrils. His mind began to swirl, faster and faster, and as a child on a merry-go-round, the images of his mind began to blur. He quickly pulled his head back out. Touching the mark with his hand, he felt the shock again and this time he placed his whole head into the watermark, and as the tear of the father met the tear of the son, the two were united on a plane of existence Von could not explain.
When the strange joyful energy threatened to rip his heart from his chest, Von pulled his wet head out. Balling his fists to wipe his eyes, he studied the words on this page. Near the bottom he saw the four words that appeared on every page—I Love You Dad. Kneeling on bended knee, Von reached into the hologram, grasped those four words and pulled them into his hands. They pulsed as if the light beat in harmony with his heart. Bowing his head, Von took the string of words, and like a scarf, wrapped them around his chest, love touching love. The room brightened and with closed eye Von felt as if he were lying in a summer field looking into the sun, such was the light that penetrated his eyelids.
The words seemed to hug him back, and releasing his grip, Von placed his hands on the floor to steady himself, and with head still bowed and eyes still closed said, “I love you too son.”
Kyra sat stunned. Von looked exhausted.
“So there you have it,” he finally managed to say.
Soundtrack for this Chapter: Same Mistake (James Blunt, All the Lost Souls)
Silus was not a completely barren world. Near the polar caps, at the right time of the year, assuming one knew where to go and Von did, lush mountains and pristine lakes could be found.
Von would often sit from dawn to dusk watching the change in light and the beauty of nature unfolding in perfect solitude. Stillness calmed the soul and soothed the mind. Most Zing Tao would tell you after day fourteen, the mind and body settled on a new level as if reaching the floor of the ocean after gently floating down from the choppy surface above. The metaphor made sense. The feeling of isolation and peace seemed most like being underwater, floating in soundlessness within the great expanse of interconnectiveness.
In these moments, called by experienced Zing Tao, third-week insights, Von saw most clearly the mind as tool—an instrument to be used when needed and set aside when it was the wrong tool. Finding the off button, well, that was the challenge.
When he entered the order, Von never saw himself as anything other than one and the same with his mind and his thoughts. On Silus, however, the gap between the two, especially in the third week, became most discernible. It had always been there, much like the Milky Way does not disappear in the city, but time on Silus was like seeing the sky in complete darkness, or in this case the mind, from a place of absolute stillness.
In these moments of stillness Von swam in direct experience, a sense of no separation between himself and the experience before him—no filters, no layers, no opinions, no judgments, no concepts, no words or ideas. As soon as words appeared in his mind to describe what was happening, he immediately saw and felt separation and falseness. Learning to let the words drop, as if falling from the sky of his mind, he saw clearly again.
Von’s first reaction to this third-week insight led again to false view, or unskillful reaction as Zeke called it. He judged it and in the judging created the very separation he thought he had overcome. Quickly, he realized his folly; yet again the mind wormed its way in the backdoor in the guise of pride. Von saw that too and neither resisting nor judging allowed the mind to dance its dance. As often the case, the mind became bored and grew weary. And Von returned to the stillness of direct experience.
To know a matter, was one thing. To be able to assimilate the knowledge and apply it was quite another. What Dauculus had been for the order as a whole, the Javalina inquisitors had been for Von himself; namely, the opportunity to put into practice the lessons from the classroom. Without Silus, Von felt he would neither have survived his torture nor recovered after the event. As strange as it sounded to the average Hynerian, Von forever thanked his inquisitors, sending them as much compassion and love as he could. He truly had no hate, no bitterness in his heart.
Opening the door, Von walked into Kyra’s room and took a seat right next to her bed. She still slept, looking as peaceful as the mountain lakes in his memory. General alarm sounded. Von heard it and let it go. Rog would handle whatever the emergency was. He was needed here now; each to their own, in time and place, unfolding in the natural order. His time was now, and his place was here.
As if on queue, Kyra opened her eyes. “Where am I?” she asked.
Horrors without, horrors within. Dauculus represented the single greatest loss of Zing Tao in the history of the Order. AAR's were never released to the public and those within say even time itself failed to wear down the gates of regret. Zeke never spoke of the matter and until the meeting with Rog, neither had Von.
"Peace is not a place Rog," said Von. "Physical wounds heal. Sometimes the emotional ones, well, sometimes they take a little longer."
Rog took another sip of snoot and Von continued. "We all make mistakes. We all have regrets. Hindsight is 20/20. Would we have done things different on Dauculus if given the chance? Absolutely. Mistakes were made and lives lost. The real damage, and I want you to listen to me very closely, the real damage was not what happened to us, but what we thought about it."
Von leaned back in his chair without breaking eye contact with Rog, judging the measure of the Hynerian's comprehension. Rog gazed down at his glass and swirled the snoot to bring the aroma into play. He wasn't sure if Von's words or the snoot was making him the most dizzy.
"She's going to make it Rog. And she was right; if you had interfered you would have put her life at risk."
"How do you know that Von? How do you know she is going to wake? How do you know I shouldn't have done something when I could?"
"Trust me Rog. Matters of this nature happen for a reason."
"Speaking of reasons, you never did say why you, a mighty Zing Tao, are onboard our ship?"
"I owed a debt."
"What kind of debt?"
"Dauculus Rog. Why do you think I told you that story? I screwed up. My career should have been over. I thought it would be. The Hynerian that should have been most angry, I'm talking about Zeke, took the blame for me. He never reported to Ji nor told anyone else that I was the one that failed the others. Hynerians, some of the most highly trained Zing Tao, reporting directly to Zeke lost their lives because of my mistake."
Rog sat stunned.
"My Kestrel crew failed to provide covering support. Zeke's deployment got ripped to shred's by chaos engineered Raptors. They were defenseless. Caught in the open waters. I can still here the distress signals and radio chatter in my head as if it were yesterday. By the time we arrived it was too late. The damage had been done."
"I'm sorry Von."
"When we landed and I exited my Kestrel, Zeke was the first one to greet me. I expected court martial, on the spot." Von paused, looked down at his drink and then back up at Rog.
"And?"
"With tears in his eyes he hugged me."
Rog looked askew at Von.
"Only a Zing Tao with the ability to make it to the ninth order could have responded with that level of compassion in the heat of the moment. I learned more in that one embrace than my entire training up to that time. And I owe everything else I accomplished because of that Hynerian."
"And how does that lead you to our little ship?"
Von laughed and standing up slapped Rog across the head. "Maybe you should lay off the snoot a bit. I'm here because of Kyra bonehead. Zeke asked me to look after her. I knew it was my chance, my chance to repay the debt."
A loud knock at the door interrupted Rog's response. Yul had found her Hynerian.
Rog walked over and opened the closet door. Sitting against the back wall, slightly hidden from direct view was a rather large round object. “Holy Shiott, Von, where the frail did you get this,” said Rog.
“Bring it over here. Ever see one of these before?”
Rog shook his head side to side. “Didn’t know they still existed. How did—“
“It was a gift.”
“Come on Von, you don’t get a Ji Shield as a gift.”
“You do if you pulled Zeke’s hoodie from the fire.”
“No shiott?”
Von laughed. “No shiott. Dauculus campaign, I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”
“No fricken way,” said Rog, “are you telling me--“
“Yep, recruited by the Hynerian himself, and it was a damn good thing he did,” Von winked.
“So you were Zing Tao?”
“Am.”
Rog’s chin moved to his chest and his eyes rolled up as if he were peering over the top of imaginary glasses. “You’re shiotting me, right? I mean what would a Zing Tao be doing on this little podunk ship?”
“Right now, looking at some sorry ass cowhand with his tail between his legs,” laughed Von. “Hold that shield and tell me what you feel.”
Rog stood taking the shield in his right hand. The center section glowed a warm orange and then Rog felt it. “Holy crap Von, what is that?”
Annual 21 day treks on Silus, the barren desert Hynerian moon, were mandatory for all Blue Onyx Zing Tao. Ji believed strongly in time alone and time alone on a consistent basis.
Long after his retirement Zeke still took an annual solitary sabbatical. He always returned with a glow, a peacefulness, a grounding that touched those around him. In all his years he made only one exception to the solitary stipulation and Kyra was forever grateful for that extended time alone with Papa.
"Everything moves Kyra. Nothing sits still. Nothing is solid. Nothing stays the same. Only Love endures, only Love persists and only Loveis. Remove the filters from your mind, see clearly and you will see only one thing--Love," said Papa. "When you don't see Love, my child, then you know you are deluded and there is work to be done. And Kyra, few of us see Love as it is."
Only one thing, thought Kyra. Only Love. She wore that thought in her mind like the Blue Onyx ring around her neck--always. Only Love.
Vanguard drones normally flew without pilot, but Ji had them modified for this mission. Zeke held more potential than any recruit Ji had ever seen but potential did not mean actualization. Potential was a fool's game and Ji was in no mood to play. The Order needed a successor and no suitable candidate had emerged, yet.
The Tragedy of Zael provided the test Ji needed. He would learn, and so would Zeke, just how far this young Hynerian could take Zing Tao. Saving a few Zaels was important but uncovering the next leader of the Order was paramount. Ji was not getting any younger and all great movements demanded leadership. Contrary to popular bedtime stories, leaders, Ji knew, were born, not made. The knife could be sharpened but a pen knife, no matter how sharp, was never going to be a bowie knife, much less a samurai sword capable of greatness.
Vanguards were always first in battle. They possessed thousands of delicate sensors capable of gathering more information on the field of battle in an hour than a commander could process in a week. Seen as an engineering marvel, they were the pride of the Southern Scientific institute. Zeke would be the first to ever actually fly in one.
“This way Lieutenant,” motioned the tech. “Watch your step sir, we’ve had to make some rather interesting modifications.”
Zeke ducked his head and settled into the drone. Pilot not needed. He would be a passenger on this ride. Price of admission—his future. “Lieutenant, if you look this way you will see the main control panel. We’ve modified the display so that you will be able to see all the data normally beamed back to central processing. Any questions sir?”
“I think I got it,” Zeke said to no one in particular. “When will she be ready for launch?”
“She’s ready now Lieutenant. Should we initiate the launch sequence?”
“Yes. Initiate the countdown. No time like now,” Zeke intoned with an unintended edge.
Less than twenty minutes to the surface. Three hours until return. Never before nor ever after would Zeke experience such a dividing line of before and after. The Hynerian that left on that Vanguard drone was not the Hynerian that returned.
Ji’s taskforce arrived. Silence. No radio traffic. No distress signals. From orbit, Zael looked normal, peaceful, tranquil. But then again, so did every other world from space.
Zeke sat in his cabin wondering what his heart would feel and his mind see that Ji had warned him about. One of two Zing Tao chosen to survey the planet in Vanguard Drones, Zeke sat and meditated in silence. Ji knew what he would see, the emotions that would assault his mind and heart. He also knew that to know was one thing; to experience and conquer quite another. The difference between the two, Zeke had been taught, should be as clear as night was to day.
Zeke dressed in silence. Fear sat beside him trading in whispers of doubt. Ji had postulated his path would go one way or the other depending on his performance. Years of training hung in the balance and it appeared his adversary was not out there, but in fact lived within. What he would see would simply reveal the shadows. That those shadows were there was not in question. How he would handle them was.
Ji expected perfection in working the gap. Stimulus and reaction, for most there was little to no gap between the two. Zing Tao lived the gap, to know stimulus as stimulus and reaction as reaction. Between them, if one could cultivate awareness, existed possibility.
The essence of Zing Tao existed in the gap. Most recruits were never able to overcome their habitual conditioning, never able to expand the gap and were subsequently washed from the program. Zeke thought he had passed, thought he had proven himself. Yet, here he was, being tested again and this time with Ji himself watching.
Like twin walls of a trash compactor, Zeke felt the pressure of Stimulus and Reaction closing in. He also knew his own resistance was not helping. Mind the gap. Work the gap. Within the gap would his future lie.
“Lieutenant Zeke, this way please.” Lampré didn’t walk, didn’t fly, but rather glided.
“Master Ji will see you in his private chambers. He’s expecting you.”
Zeke drew a slow steady deep breath. Letting the air out at a slightly faster nervous cadence, he stepped into Ji’s private quarters. Immediately his mind felt like mush, time seemed warped, and his thoughts slowed. His eyes took in light in the dimly lit room, yet even light seemed to move at a different tempo. An unusual lightness lifted his body as if Ji’s room operated at a different gravity than the rest of the ship. Zeke felt like a Hynerian who had checked his wits at the cloak room. He had them but they weren’t here now.
“At ease Lieutenant.” Words registered. Ji had spoken. Body failed to respond. Then laughter. Ji could manifest as either body or spirit, and preferred his spirit form whenever possible. Invisible to the normal eye, Ji employed an ocular oscillator so that others could visually interact with him.
“Sorry Master Ji. I . . .” and then nothing. Zeke felt like his vocal cords were frozen. More laughter. Ji always seemed to know how to break the tension. “Everyone reacts the same the first time they use the ocular Zeke.”
“Our time is short and there is little to say,” laughed Ji. “No need to speak my son, I know your mind and I know your heart. If I didn’t have faith that both were exactly where they needed to be, you would not have been invited on this mission.”
“Javalina Destroyer’s will attack before we will arrive. The planet is lost but our objective is to save the Zaels we can and bring them back to Hyneria. For you, my friend, this mission has a different purpose. You will see things your eyes have never seen before. Your heart will feel vibrations and tremors of terror new and alien to anything you have felt before.”
“The days ahead Lieutenant determine where you go from here within the order. First contact has a way of blunting growth. The heart grows callused in some, and a callused heart becomes dull with anger and bitterness.”
“Watch your heart. Let it grow not in revenge, not in justification, but let it expand in compassion for our adversary. Hate begets hate. Watch your heart. Cultivate love and compassion. Only love is truth and only truth conquers. Zing Tao, Lieutenant. Prepare yourself. Much is expected. Much you will do. Dismissed.”
On Hyneria the southern sky during summer solstice produced the most fabulous rainbow light shows. Brilliant primary colors filled the sky with such beauty the Hynerians gave the effect its own name—The Southern Juju. To witness the Southern Juju lights on the beaches of Valla became an annual holiday for the family. Only lasting for a couple days with peak intensity lasting just an hour or so at dusk and again the following dawn, the family made an annual holiday of the event at the Valla retreat. Canvas and paint became the order of the day. Just something about those colors made everyone want to play in pigment.
Found only in the southern regions, Pepegai minor, known commonly as the Juju bird for its dazzling color that mimicked the Southern Lights. But the name stuck for another reason. Juju birds were easy to domesticate and their subtle chirping at sixty to seventy beats per minute provided the most interesting biofeedback for Hynerians.
Scientists had discovered that school children who studied to the sound of Juju birds increased their retention of material by forty percent. Jujus were very popular with parents with young kids, and Papa was a huge fan since Ji had used them in Zing Tao training. Kyra never studied without her Juju birds.
Jujus were famous for one more reason. Their biological system processed ninety-eight percent of all food and water ingested. That is, they produced almost zero waste. Juju birds possessed perhaps the most efficient biological system known on Hyneria. As such, they became a favorite pet for space expeditions. For Kyra, Jujus were memories of better times, memories of Valla and memories of Papa.
“Good morning Kyra. Come drink your snizzle before it gets cold.”
How a mechanical contraption could sound like her grandmother never failed to surprise Kyra. Brushing the dark long hair out of her eyes she threw one leg followed by the other off the bed and headed for her breakfast nook.
Morning Hynerian, Kyra was not. She loved her snizzle and refused to start the day without it. Goldie, as Kyra called her personal assistant, had perfected brew time and temperature. Of course, since Papa Kyra had built her, exact attention to detail was a given. That he gave her Ms Papa Kyra’s voice was a gift. A gift to whom, she chuckled, was still a mystery since Papa seemed to enjoy having Goldie around as much as she did.
Grandma had passed away a few years before Kyra came of age. Within six months, love and grief had built Goldie using Papa’s hands, mind and heart. The only surprise for Kyra was that Papa gave her away. But as he always said, “Sweet baby, I had your grandma for many years, you but a few. This is my way of correcting that injustice.”
How a Zing Tao of the Ninth Order could have such love in his heart, such compassion—well, that was the very thing that Ji saw in Papa. “Love was Truth,” Ji would say with all seriousness. “No Truth, no Zing Tao,” he quickly added with a laugh that put everyone at ease.
According to Papa, Ji had an outstanding sense of humor. “Humor reminds us what we don’t know. Why do you laugh," Ji would often query a new recruit. Of course, no one knew where laughing came from and before the questioned could make a fool of him or herself, Ji would slap his hand down on the table making as large a booming noise as possible exclaiming, “And That’s the Point! Don’t know.” And with a sparkle in his eyes, Ji would let out a booming laugh that echoed the love within his heart for teaching.
Time for some snizzle. Ah, if only Papa had build Goldie to enjoy it with her.
While Zeke waited to meet with Ji, the rest of the Zing Tao contingent passed the time playing Wabi Wabi. Articulated fast, Ji developed the game to sharpen the connection between sight and mind in distinguishing between illusion, delusion and correct view within four dimensions.
To play, a Zing Tao would stand before a floor length holographic screen of floating discs. Each disc was similar to the one next to it, yet slightly different. Moving quickly, the discs rotated while moving up and down. Some discs were real, some were not. Whenever two discs lit up, a warrior had a split second to determine if they were a match, if they both were real, and then if he could tag both before the lighted discs blinked off. With each correct match, the game sped up.
Each player played until he incorrectly identified a match. Many Hynerian dinars traded hands. As Ji liked to teach, make it fun. Make the training such that the lesson gets lost in play. Wabi Wabi taught without anyone ever giving a thought that each game sharpened skills that could mean life or death. It was just fun--so they played. And so they learned--the Zing Tao way.
Stepping inside the door, Lampré, Ji's personal assistant, greeted Zeke. No one knew exactly what kind of creature Lampré was since Ji had brought his friend from Brandonia. Lampré was thought to roughly translate to mean loyal and he or she or it was nothing if not loyal to Ji.
"Welcome lieutenant Zeke," Lampré purred. "Master Ji has been expecting your arrival. Please wait here."
Zeke was on time to the millisecond. He had paced his walk such that his hand touched the identification pad at the exact second of his appointment.
Contrary to public opinion, Zing Tao training involved no external discipline. No list of rules, no yelling, no berating, no breaking down the individual in order to rebuild them. Ji knew each candidate needed to retain their unique gifts and he also knew that discipline had to come from within.
Show up late for a meeting and you were out. Simple as that. You either were or were not, you either did or did not but in either case, it was up to you. So now Zeke would wait for Lampré to return. In a matter of minutes he would be stepping into Ji's inner sanctum.
Zimmler training addressed fear; the Trial of Thorns, pain. Most Hynerian recruits saw pain as static, something solid, something to avoid, as something that happened to them. They were wrong on all accounts. Zing Tao indoctrination sought as much to untrain false view, to uproot years of deception, as it did to plant and water right view. Weed and plant, weed and plant. For Ji, pain provided the perfect place to start the weeding.
To say the Trial of Thorns was about pain really missed the point. According to Ji, pain equaled data, no more no less. Data used skillfully aided the warrior and data used unskillfully hindered. Dropping false ideas, simplifying view, seeking flow within the dynamic made Zing Tao warriors different from the rest. Many felt they had simply mastered skills and techniques. Ji didn’t see it that way. For him, training meant dropping, not picking up, it meant doing less, not learning more, it mean seeing pain for the friend it was, not the enemy loathed.
Those recruits who embraced pain and dropped their static, solid views of something out there graduated to advanced training. As a small token of remembrance, each graduating recruit was given a small mosaic plague depicting The Trial. No Zing Tao ever was far from this memento. Placing his right hand on the identification pad to enter Ji’s chamber, Zeke unconsciously ran the fingers of his left hand over the cobble like tiles on his plaque. Felt it gave him good luck.
With a familiar soothing whoosh, the door opened and Zeke walked in.
Eighty paces, eight million thoughts. Zeke knew resistance and effort would work against his desire for calm and clarity. He resisted and worked anyway. He knew desire was the illusion, yet he could no longer shake that desire from his mind anymore than he could rub the black off his boots. He wasn’t ready, he wasn’t worthy and he knew neither thought was a friend of his. How did these enemies of truth enter and take root in his mind, whispering echoes of deceit so lightly as to make even a falling flutrix feather sound like the dull thud of a large tome falling from the top shelf.
Zeke’s mind started to move in slow motion. Images flashed like slides in a projector. First course: Zimmlers. Zimmlers struck fear, and so they were employed—first. Ji had no patience for recruits that did not possess the most basic aptitude for handling fear. They might make good Blue Onyx warriors, but not Zing Tao. No sense in beating around the bush. Day one, Zimmler training.
Zimmlers were native to Hyneria. Large creatures that lived in the high altitudes above the Southern Sea, they took to Hynerians like wild mustangs took to being rode. In the right hands Zimmlers could be ridden through the upper currents at heights unknown to the masses and at speeds no living thing could approach. They made the perfect training tool for Ji.
Mastering control of your Zimmler meant to master your fear. More than seventy percent of all recruits washed out of Zimmler training. Height and speed unwrapped their fear, tossing them to the side as quickly and carelessly as a child discarding wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
Zeke made it. He fixed his mind on that single success. Focus turned to concentration. He had made it pass the Zimmlers and now he would make it pass Ji.
Zeke knew the history. Ji came from royalty on Brandonia. At a very early age royal sages hailed Ji as the next golden child, one with unnatural superior ability and as such was raised as the blessed one. Ji fulfilled all expectations and then exceeded them. Where there had been war, Ji brought peace; where darkness, light; where anger and hurt, love and mercy.
At the tender age of four hundred and thirty, Ji astounded everyone again. He laid down his reign. The golden age brought forth by the golden child had come to an end at a time of his choosing. He was stepping down at the height of his influence. Of course, many said Ji had accomplished everything that could have been done. There really was nothing left to do on Brandonia.
Within days of resigning, Ji was gone. Those closest to him speculated, but no one knew where he had gone, why he left, or what he was up to. More than a hundred years later the Hynerians knew. Grateful did not begin to explain their view of his gifts, and main jewel of which was Zing Tao.
And now, Zeke was about to meet Ji Qong in person. The walk from his abode to Ji's chambers made time stand still. Not more than eighty paces, Zeke felt the weight of each step as if gravity had suddenly multiplied by a factor of ten. So much for the serenity garden. All traces of elevated serenton levels had evaporated. Zeke was on his own.
Prior to meeting with Ji Qong, all Zing Tao were encouraged to spend time with their Serenity Gardens. Papa Kyra, known to his mates as Zeke, embraced the opportunity. Ji had introduced the gardens as part of every initiates training. Known to aid in calming and clearing the mind, they were cultivated and used like training wheels in clear seeing.
Each initiate received one blue bamthem flower along with one pinkish purple flutrix. Bamthems and flutrices thrived on the level of surrounding serenity in their immediate environment. Yet, the relationship between the owner and flowers and flutrices was not one-way. Creatures of pure peace, bamthems and flutrices emitted a slightly sweet perfume with pollination and germination, almost unnoticeable, which interacted with Hynerian neocortexes in inducing the release of serenton, a rare chemical (similar to serotonin in humans) that relaxed the body and cleared the mind of wayward and random thought.
The garden’s owner, the bamthems and the flutrices worked together, almost symbiotically to promote a sense of peace, tranquility and serenity. The more accomplished the gardener, the more bamthems grew and the more the flutrices reproduced. The most accomplished Zing Taos had serenity gardens of many thousand of bamthems and flutrices, a sign they had reached superior levels of equanimity.
Zeke only had a handful of bamthems to go with his few flutrices. Yet, the sweet smell of serenity filled the air of his small abode. Troubles and worries quickly fell away like unbound shackles. A sense of freedom from illusion created an expansive clarity Zeke hoped to one day recreate without the aid of his garden. Today, however, was not that day. He was going to need all the help he could muster to not look like the blustering novice he felt himself to be. Of course, he knew, Ji would see right through him, but he also knew Ji would see his intent and heart and that had to count for something.
Zing Tao warriors trained in the ways of peace as well as the ways of war. An elite group within the Blue Onyx special section, their methods and ways were neither well known nor fully appreciated. For instance, Hynerian Peace Flowers were a direct result of Zing Tao cultivation, the weaving together of beauty and science with the unseen thread of peace educated by compassion and instructed by love. No one outside Zing Tao monasteries could explain how they were created or how they worked. Results, however, spoke for themselves.
The tragedy of Zael presented Papa with his first experience in the field upon ordination within the elite branch. They say the first cut is always the deepest, and from the number of times he liked to tell the story, Zael and his experience there seemed forever branded in his memory.
Zael was part of a distant subsystem of planets that were fairly off the beaten path. Not a lot of activity and really no reason for anyone to venture in that direction. Zael did have one feature that made it valuable, namely the creatures that populated the area and named for the very subsystem they called home. Zaels live in and around Zael, yet whenever anyone spoke of Zael, the reference surely referred to the creatures and not the system.
Zaels possessed perhaps the most unique physiology known to Hynerians. Each Zael had dual coloring and each color performed multiple unique functions. The purple part of the organism sustained life in outer space, while the green segment maintained the organism on any of the planets within the subsystem. How this could be remained a mystery.
Hynerians knew of no other creature whose primary habitat was planetary while also able, completely unaided, to live and thrive equally well in the vacuum of space. Herein lay their value. Hynerian scientists had hoped to learn how this was possible, how a creature could literally have two totally different biological systems, yet still function as a single entity. Zing Tao warriors, in particular, were fascinated with the philosophical implications implied in dualism manifesting as oneness. A kinship formed between the two and they were the first to volunteer when trouble was realized.
Zaels were also unique in that there was no such thing as male and female Zaels. Each creature contained both sexual functions. Since they experienced no internal conflict between their dual sexual natures, the creatures tended to reproduce at a prodigious rate. We might have called them the rabbits of the universe. Wherever there was one Zael, there was sure to be hundreds of baby Zaels.
There in lay the trouble. The more the Zaels reproduced the more resources they consumed. Only a matter of time before their numbers constituted a threat to other species within the subsystem. Reports of war had worked their way from Hynerian scientific outposts to Hyneria, but such reports were all too common place and no one took them too seriously.
Problem was, Zaels were peaceful creatures with little means to defend themselves. Once neighboring Javalinas lauched their attack, slaughter was the only word to describe the wholesale destruction. By the time the seriousness of the situation became clear, only Zing Tao warriors stood a chance of stopping the carnage. Papa Kyra’s unit was the first to arrive on the scene and what he saw forever stood as a milestone between his innocence and the rest of his life.
Von flipped through page after page, skimming images in his mind as much as words on paper. The letters, one for each day of his captivity, were not so much letters as they were conversations, the sort of conversation that if overheard by a stranger, would not be given a second thought, but when imagined by the father from the son would not have been exchanged for all the world. Yet, the letters were not really conversations, they were prayers, or, as was called in the Tao, meditative prayers. There was a difference. Prayer was a plea, passive, something your grandmother did; meditative prayer a deed, active, and effective in ways beyond common comprehension. The Tao believed that meditative prayer could reach beyond space and time and shape events. His son had spent more than three years absorbed in that belief.
