What Do You Think?
"First bow," Novice Razhum said. The line of pupils in front of him geneflucted as one, their white robes pooling around them. They held the bow for three breaths - Razhum counted - and rose to their knees.
"Second bow," Razhum intoned, trying not to sound too bored. Again the pupils sank to the ground, some even pressing their foreheads into the grass. Razhum knew that he should correct them - it was completely improper protocol for anyone besides a servant to bow so low - but he didn't feel like it. Three more breaths, and they rose.
"Third bow," he didn't say so much as sigh. With a rustle of cloth, the boys bowed one final time. They held it, as was proper, for five breaths. Razhum watched them with growing restlessness, trying to entertain himself by picking out the ones who were trembling or had smushed their faces into the grass. He liked to encounter apprentices who had trouble following protocol. They reminded him of how he’d been when he'd come to the temple, as seven-year-old Keri.
"Rise," he declared after the fifth breath. In unison the boys shuffled to their knees, some dusting off their robes; one tiny boy tried to rub grass stains from his knees. Razhum surveyed with them his chin propped in one hand. There were nine in all, new arrivals to the Temple of the Universal Soul. In some - including the grass-stained boy - he recognized the skinny builds and tired eyes of street children, who had probably been taken into the temple as charity cases. Others had glowing skin and lounged with the indolent grace of the always affluent. Razhum had heard that a noble's son had chosen to apprentice at the temple this year, though he'd be hard-pressed to pick out that boy among this bunch, wearing plain white linen robes as they were.
Despite their identical robes, Razhum was struck by how dissimilar the boys looked. There was the initial difference between the pampered princes and the beggars, but there were also differences of build, skin tone and hair color. Two boys displayed the pale skin and dark hair of northerners; one had the tan skin and narrow eyes identified with Ziannanites; and still others were like Razhum, small and bronze-skinned. The boy with the stained knees and the threadbare robe struck a particularly strong note in Razhum's heart. He alone sported a mop of snowy white hair, just like Razhum. White hair wasn't uncommon in the southern islands, but almost unheard of in the main continent.
It was silly to judge the children this early, especially since he'd just met them. He shouldn't favor any over the others because they were all equally contempible. Looking at them, Razhum could tell that they were true outsiders, unknowing of the ways of the temple. None of them sat straight-backed and upright on their knees; all wobbled in the position, clearly unused to it. Their faces ranged from apprehensive to excited to annoyed; a far cry from the dedicates who always gazed in the distance with such gentle certainty.
They're just children, don't be too rough on them, a tiny voice in his head said, which sounded a lot like that of his mentor Dedicate Darenth. Razhum shoved it aside. He'd be as rough as liked. It wasn't as if he even wanted to do this: though he'd lived in the Temple for almost ten years, he'd always been fortunate enough to avoid having to teach the new arrivals every spring. He suspected it was because the Temple Elders - very wisely - had judged that he would make most of the children cry and want to leave the temple. Through no fault of his own. Razhum was well aware of his own shortcomings, and he knew that impatience was among them. Not impatience in general - he could sit under the same tree from sunup to sundown, watching the leaves rustle in the wind, and meditate without a break - but impatience with other people. Children especially.
The children, all so fresh-faced and eager, none of them older than ten, gazed at him. They were waiting for him to begin the lesson. Razhum sighed. He would have to speak a lot, he suspected.
"Novice Razhum," he said pointing at himself. He was so slight and scrawny that his robe – its black trim denoting him a novice priest - hung off his body like a tent. "You already know how to bow well."
"Thank you, Master," the Ziannanite child said. He had a confident look about him, which already rang alarm bells in Razhum's mind.
"Was I talking to you?” the priest snapped.
The boy spread his fingers over his chest and lowered his head - the contrite bow. "Forgive me, Master."
Razhum suppressed the urge to tell him to shut up. Already taxed from having spoken such long sentences, he turned to the group in general. "How long have you lot been here?"
The Ziannanite boy jumped in before Razhum could finish drawing a breath. "Three weeks, Master."
"Do you know what you are studying today?" Because I've already forgotten.
"The Annals of Zeshu, passages nineteen-to-twenty-seven, Master!" Razhum was not surprised to see who spoke. The Ziannanite boy practically bounced up and down in his eagerness.
Razhum wondered if ignoring him would teach him to quiet down. Silence, the old sage Zeshu's words ran through his head, is the gift of the wise man. Razhum personally thought that Zeshu was an uptight blowhard whose strict philosophy arose from sexual frustration, but he had to admit that the old man sometimes had a point. He turned to the boy sitting to the Ziannanite boy's right, and looking him in the eye, said, "What are you studying today?"
"Erm..." The boy swallowed, looking put out at being called on so soon. "He, he already said it..." He fluttered his hands at the Ziannanite boy, who was staring at Razhum in open-mouthed affront.
"Who?" Razhum raised an eyebrow.
Unfortunately the boy didn't know that the best thing to do when you'd dug yourself into a hole was to stop digging. He pointed more insistently at his neighbor, almost jabbing his finger into the other boy's chest. "Him!"
"M-Master," piped up the white-haired boy. His voice was higher than a reed whistle. "We're s-supposed to r-read and analyze p-passages nineteen-to-twenty-seven i-in the Annals of Zeshu."
Razhum nodded, satisfied that someone had a little sense. "I was gonna say that," grumbled the Ziannanite boy.
"Silence," Razhum declared, deepening his natural soprano to lend the sage's words more effect, "is the gift of the wise man. Now read."
"Th-that's from p-passage thirteen in th-the Annals," squeaked the white-haired boy.
"Yes, now start reading."
The boys whipped out the little paper volumes resting by their sides and rifled through the pages. If the boys' appearances had given clues to their social statuses, their books' conditions cemented Razhum's previous opinions. The white-haired boy's Annals was falling apart and held together by crude stitching; the Ziannanite boy had encased his volume in a shiny leather cover. They opened their books to the proper pages and then looked up at him.
Razhum raised an eyebrow. “Is this reading?”
"But who'll start, Master? I volunteer, if no one else will," the Ziannanite boy said.
"What do you mean?" Razhum snapped. "Just read."
"Someone has to start," the Ziannanite boy said. "Or are we gonna start from that end and work our way around?" He pointed to his left.
Razhum blinked twice, and then he realized what the Ziannanite boy was blathering about. He didn't snicker even though he wanted to, because that would have taken too much effort. Instead, he snorted.
"Read to yourselves. In your heads. Can you do that? Have you learned to do that?"
He actually wasn't sure if all of the boys could read; Razhum had been unable to when he'd come to the temple. But in response most of the boys - the white-haired boy included - dropped their gazes to their volumes. The Ziannanite boy looked confused for a few moments before following suit.
While they were occupied, Razhum decided to occupy himself. He didn't know what to do, though. It was a nice day; the air was cool and tinged with a seaside breeze as always, and in the shade of the baqyel tree tucked in the corner of the central courtyard, he and his pupils were shielded from the worst of the subtropical sun. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a few priests ambling down the wooden walkway edging the courtyard. They paused when they saw him, doing double takes.
Believe me, you're not the only ones surprised that I'm here, doing this, he thought.
Now that the children had started reading, at least they weren't so high maintenance - Razhum was happy to be rid of the Ziannanite boy's pompous whine. He remained in position, turning his head to examine the courtyard he'd seen countless times before. It was boring, but he had nothing else to do while the brats read.
When he turned back to them, he received a nasty shock: all were staring at him, eyes wide and owl-like.
"What?" he said.
"We've all finished passage nineteen," declared the Ziannanite boy.
"What?" he said again.
"We've finished passage nineteen, Master," the Ziannanite boy repeated. "Aren't we going to discuss it?"
"What is there to discuss?" Razhum said. "If you read it you understood it, yes? It's simple."
"But what's its interpretation?" the Ziannanite boy insisted.
"If you read it, you would know," Razhum said.
"We did read it," said a boy sitting at the edge of the group, one of the two northerners. "But we need you to interpret it for us, Master."
"Why me?" Razhum snapped.
The boy looked puzzled. "Because you're our teacher."
"So I am supposed to tell you what you should think. No. What do you think?"
"Ex-excuse me?" the boy stammered.
Razhum resisted the urge to bury his face behind his hands. He was already getting tired of talking so much. His throat burned and his mind felt like it'd been enveloped in cobwebs. It took tremendous effort to force the rest of his words out.
"Tell me...what you think...the passage means."
"But I don't know," the boy said.
"Then you are not reading closely enough. It is straightforward. All of you should have an opinion on it. So share them. Even you," he added, nodding at the Ziannanite boy, who flushed bright red.
"W-we're just k-kids," the white-haired boy said. "Y-you're a p-priest...you sh-should know more th-than us..."
"For the love of the Universal Soul!" Razhum said in a single rush, giving in to the frustation that had beeing growing inside him throughout this farce of a lesson. "You are students. That means doing your own work. Thinking for yourself. That is how you attain Oneness. You! What do you think the passage means?”
The white-haired boy went pale; he sucked in a deep breath and stammered as he tried to gain his bearings. He was really quite small, couldn't be older than eight. Razhum wondered if he was asking too much of him. Razhum couldn't even remember being eight, though that was because he had not yet gained full control over his senses at that age - Dedicate Darenth had been still struggling to teach him to speak.
When he remembered that, a sudden - something - rose in Razhum's chest and coiled around his heart. Sympathy? Yes, he could understand why these boys were so hard-pressed to explain what they really thought and felt. Even now, Razhum found it difficult to talk for more than few sentences at a time. Capturing words and pinning them into solid thoughts was just like butterfly hunting: difficult and, from his perspective, unrewarding. Why couldn't he open his mind to the people around him and let them share his thoughts and feelings and being? That was easier for him.
Easier, but much more dangerous. Before Dedicate Darenth had found him, he'd been starving and sick and unable to move, because every mind in the entire city was inundating his. He had only been able to interact with people on a meaningful level after Darenth had taken him in and taught him to maintain barriers around his mind - and taught him to write, read, and speak. Speech was annoying, but it was the only way he could connect with others. Whether they were Darenth or even these annoying children.
Is that why you put me in charge of teaching the new children? Because you knew I'd come to that conclusion? You're one clever bastard, old man. Either that, or you know me disturbingly well.
"Master, I think I know - " cried the Ziannanite boy, waving his hand in the air.
On the other hand, some people needed to learn to talk less.
"You.” Razhum pointed at the white-haired boy. "What do you think?"
"I th-think..." The boy swallowed. "I d-don't th-think he's...I m-mean...h-he says a man should always um, s-stick to his p-p-principles, b-but s-sometimes it's really hard to do it. L-like, Zeshu s-says stealing is one of the s-seven moral failures, b-but I think if, if you're r-really hungry, then you c-can't help it, right..."
His voice trailed off. Razhum nodded encouragingly.
"One way to view it. Yes, you? Don't kill us with your eagerness."
The Ziannanite boy looked relieved to be finally been called on. "Well, I think he's saying that principles sometimes are greater than physical desires! So even if you're starving, a true enlightened man wouldn't ever steal. You know, he lays it out pretty clear."
"I kn-know that.” The white haired boy looked upset.
"That is what he says," Razhum said, "but you can agree or disagree."
"Why would you disagree?" The Ziannanite boy sounded scandalized. "The Annals is one of the Eight Books of Oneness! It wouldn't be one unless it was totally correct."
The boy sitting next to him said, "But one guy can't be right all the time. Even Chief Elder Priest said that at the welcoming speech, no human's ever achieved Oneness."
"That's what you think," the Ziannanite boy shot back.
"Indeed," Razhum cut in. "Everything you are saying is what you think. It is truth to you. Perhaps not to anyone else. But the important thing, when dealing with philosophy that is...I mean..." He'd lost his train of thought. He cleared his throat twice and struggled against the cotton clogging his mind. Speaking through his mental barriers was always difficult, and it was nearly impossible for him to force out long speeches. Still, he fought like a swimmer in an ocean of tar. If he didn't make his point clear to the children, they'd never understand...
Strange that he wanted so badly to impress his opinion on them. Most of the time he didn't care what others thought of him or his beliefs. He was content to let them go about their lives, and they'd leave him to his. But this was different because he was supposed to be teaching them - because he was responsible, at least in part, for setting them on their path to enlightenment. The same way that Dedicate Darenth had set him on his own.
That realization made him feel heavier, but still he maintained his position, and still he tried to speak.
"What I mean to say is that...everyone's right. To a degree. It would not be right for me to force my view on you, because I came to that view on my own. Thinking on my own. You should come to the views that your thoughts lead you to. It is cheating to have someone else put them on you. I could tell you that I think Zeshu is a repressive, sexually frustrated fool who was right some of the time, but you do not have to think the same thing. You do not." He nodded at the Ziannanite boy. "Think about why you think the things you do. That will make you either change your beliefs or believe even more."
Another deep breath, and he plunged to the finish. "That's what I think. Now, what about you?"
They told him. He had two hours with them and as the shadows shortened, he heard more about them, their opinions, their beliefs, their backgrounds. About how they connected to Zeshu. Of course, at first there was the obligatory giggling about him using the word "sexual," but the discussion soon took a more serious turn. The Ziannanite boy bloviated and blustered about how the authors of the Eight Books had to be right, while the white-haired boy brought up situations in which general principles did not apply and suggested that morality should be fluid, while another boy, a skinny one with spectacles, had nothing philosophical to say but insisted that it was silly to call them the "Eight Books" because four of them weren't even "books" in a technical sense. The boy sitting next to the Ziannanite spent an inordinate amount of time relaying an anecdote about his grandmother and her favorite cat and how that related to Zeshu's opinions on moral principle.
By the end of the two hours, they had only covered two of the passages. Razhum wasn't bothered, because it had been a good discussion. He hadn't said much, but he'd enjoyed listening. Strange, because most of the time, he didn't like hearing people argue. Perhaps it was different because the boys' high voices were easier on his ears than an adult's low tones, or perhaps...it was something else.
The boys had to bow to him three times again, and he had to return the bow this time, though only once. Razhum hated bowing because he hated useless ritual on principle, but he wryly thought that the white-haired boy was correct: there was no point in always adhering to principle. Sometimes principles changed depending on circumstances.
So he bowed, low and for five breaths, and when he emerged from it he raised his hand to stop the boys from bolting right away, and asked the question that he should've asked at the beginning, but had been too uncomfortable to. Or rather, hadn't cared to.
"By the way...what are all of your names?"
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Go ahead and tear it apart. What I'm most worried about is that there are a lot of characters,all unnamed young boys, and I'm worried that they might end up bleeding together. I'd really love comments on characterization in general, since that's what I want to be front and center in this story.
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