Free Grandmaster by Molly Cochran Page A

men would hold his hand directly over the flames and press them into the earth, leaving no mark on either the ground or his flesh.
    He had questioned at first. He had complained of the welts and blisters on his feet, despite his shoes, of the constant ache in his legs. At a command from Tagore, the men all removed their sandals and walked barefoot, carrying Justin on their backs. When he objected to the gruel they ate as daily fare, an unpleasant mixture of brick tea, sour milk, salt, rancid butter, fragments of dried white cheese and roasted barley, one of the men killed a goat and brought it to their camp. To Justin's delight, they roasted the goat and placed a huge shank of meat before him.
    The man who had brought the dead goat bowed to Justin, then to Tagore, and left.
    Justin ate ravenously, barely noticing that the others were not eating at all. He offered some of the meat to Tagore, but the old man refused.
    "Aren't you hungry?" Justin asked.
    "No," Tagore said simply.
    The meal finished, Justin wrapped himself in a blanket, as usual, while the others lay on the bare ground with only scattered shrubs and rocks for shelter against the night winds. He couldn't sleep. Rising, he saw only four of the six men. Some distance away, Tagore knelt on a rocky stretch of ground, facing the mountains to the north. Justin went up to him and knelt beside him, wincing at the sharp stab of the rocks. "Where is the other man?" he asked.
    "He is dead," Tagore said. The flesh of his face sagged. The eloquent long nose of the old man jutted with dignity toward the northern mountains.
    "How?" Justin asked.
    "That was for him to decide. There are many ways to will the body to die. He has gone into the shadows. We will not find him."
    "Then how do you know he killed himself?"
    "He had no other choice," Tagore said. "Like all of us, he was a monk who devoted his life to holiness. Yet this night he performed an act by which his karma was sullied."
    "Karma?"
    "The life force," Tagore explained. "Each of the Creator's beings on earth possesses a soul. In the beginning of life, this soul possesses all things, all possibilities. But as one s life grows, he forges by his actions the quality of that soul. The beauty or ugliness of his destiny is charted by the wisdom and care he places into his spirit. Do you understand?"
    Justin nodded. "But why did the monk die?"
    "He knew he could never again attain the spiritual purity necessary for our way of life," Tagore said. "His only course was to relinquish this life and wait for the next, in which he might justify himself."
    Justin shifted his weight to sit, rather than kneel, on the sharp stones. "He must have done something terrible," he said.
    "Not terrible. Necessary."
    "What's that mean?" Justin asked.
    Tagore fixed him with reproachful eyes. "You were not pleased with your food. Because there is so little edible vegetation in the area, he was obliged to kill the goat whose meat you ate. In doing so, he violated one of the laws of our religion."
    "But it was food."
    Tagore shook his head. "We had food. We would not have starved without the goat. And the beast was not attacking us. Its life was not taken in defense of our own. It was killed only for your pleasure."
    The boy scrambled to his feet. "I don't believe you," he hissed.
    Tagore only turned again to the mountain.
    Justin was crying. "Did he know?" he asked in a small voice. "Did he know what would—happen to him?"
    "Yes, my son," Tagore said.
    "Then why didn't he tell me? I didn't have to eat the goat. Not if he was going to die for it."
    Tagore took his hand. "One does not learn from words," he said. "And he obeyed because you are Patanjali."
    That night, Justin took his blanket to the base of the mountain and left it there. He did not complain again.
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    T agore and his men spoke little during their long sojourn. By day, they moved swiftly, stealing silently over the land, leaving only Justin's footprints in their wake. At night they