Ren Yu slammed the empty ale flasks down on the table, "Done!"
"What's that?" A short woman bustled through a doorway, she wore a stained apron which bunched tightly at every bulge and was rubbing a cup with a dishcloth. Her face bore wrinkles beyond her years and strands of grey hair ran through black, scraped messily into a clasp. "Done already?"
"They're all here on the bench," Ren Yu replied, nodding enthusiastically.
"You collected all those flasks already?” The woman looked incredulous, “What about the plates? I need plates tonight or what will I serve my customers on?"
Ren Yu cocked his head quizzically, "You asked me to do plates as well?"
The woman let out an exclamatory sound and threw her cloth at him. Ren Yu laughed, easily dodging the attack, "I did them earlier Auntie, I'm off now!"
Ren Nuan glared at her unruly nephew, "Alright, get out of here then, going to see Su Jun I expect? Always up at that monastery, anyone would think you had a higher calling!"
"I do and it's called fishing," Ren Yu grinned broadly and his dark brown hair fell over his eyes. He was not overly tall but rather thin with wiry muscles acquired from manual labour, his cheekbones were high and his rounded lips always curved upwards in a smile.
"I practically raised you!" cried Ren Nuan. "Since your poor father was laid to rest, and this is what you do, shirking your duties, running around the mountains all day and night!"
Ren Yu walked up and kissed her on the cheek, "I'll be back to help serve tonight, I promise, if we're lucky I'll even bring you a nice fish to cook for my dinner."
Ren Nuan let out an indignant snort and pretended to start hitting him around the head. Laughing, Ren Yu backed out of the tavern door and into the street.
The town of Gowla stretched in the shape of a 'Y' with the two prongs wrapping around a small cluster of tall hills, upon which, precariously clung an imposing building of stone. This was the monastery, one of the furthest east of its kind that still existed. Over recent years monasteries had started shifting more and more into the western provinces. In the valley below were rows of crooked wooden houses with black or red tiled roofs, along the eaves of which hung paper lanterns illuminating the narrow streets. The lanterns were necessary even in the afternoon as the sun hid quickly behind the tall mountain ranges.
Ren Yu drew his robes closely around him, he was wearing boots with loose fitting trousers tucked into them and a long sleeved shirt in dark grey. The wind was picking up tonight and the moth eaten holes in the fabric were unforgiving. The sign of the tavern was swinging gently to and fro, creaking as it did so. Ren Nuan was always on at him to get up on the ladder and oil the hinges, but he didn't want to. The noise of that sign had rocked him to sleep as a child in place of a mother's lullabies, without it, things just wouldn't feel right.
The tavern was a large house wedged in a gap too small and causing the front to bulge out. It reminded Ren Yu of the time a rather portly resident of Gowla had gotten his head stuck between the bars of his gate after a few ales. The man's eyes had protruded like the tavern windows, which looked like they might pop right out at any moment. The door, when opened, let out a gust of warm air like the gasps of the trapped man. The door itself was a thick slab of pine fashioned by Ding Chao, the carpenter who lived next door. Sawdust caked the street in front of his workshop, the birds would come down and steal it for their nests and there were always small trails of footprints from cats or playing children. On top of the red tiles of the tavern roof was a massive chimney where a crow had recently taken up residence, a good omen in Gowla. Beside the crow swung a weather vane in the shape of a skeleton so as to ward off Death.
The tale was that Death would show up, see the skeleton and think himself too late, as the corpse of his victim had already gone. There were many such decorative tricks spread over the town. The windows rattled in the breeze, the large panes of glass were placed on the ground floor and upstairs only had portholes, this style was preferred as townsfolk declared that downstairs was for living and upstairs for sleeping.
The street upon which Ren Yu was standing was cobbled with large uneven tiles. Several of the tiles had superstitious carvings and patterns on them from the old days. The town, Ren Nuan joked, was as much built with superstition as it was bricks and mortar. Even down to the way it was designed, the buildings housing fair-haired families looked east to the rising sun where their first ancestors must have resided in the old days and so the hairs on their heads were bleached by the morning rays. Dark-haired families looked north to the lands of shadows and those of red hair looked west to the burning glow of the setting sun. Mixed families ended up living in houses where one floor had port windows facing one way then the next floor facing another, creating a twisted rhomboid of a house.
Of course the tales of the old days were just that, a part of a long forgotten past and it would have been a surprise if any of the children who ran over the painted cobbled streets all day had known what the markings meant. But the fact that they were there comforted the inhabitants of Gowla and annually, when the symbols had been dulled underfoot, they diligently repainted them.
The patterns were actually all Spirit-marks from the days when such creatures roamed the land. Although these times were over and the Spirits had long left these parts, they were still revered. When the men fought to protect their homes with swords or put out fires with buckets of water, it was not the swords or buckets, or even the men that got the thanks, it was the Spirit-marks, their paint peeling beneath the feet of the men.
The inhabitants of Gowla were a relatively lively lot, fiercely proud of their town which was one of the remotest among the mountain dwellings. This being the case, during colder months with fewer visitors they often had to satisfy themselves by boasting amongst their own. This pastime, often pursued in the tavern over ale was most rewarding as no one would ever disagree with you; conversations followed a rather repetitive pattern;
"I tell you, Gowla's water pipes were wrought in the strongest metals mined from Siqin Mountain, that's why they never burst, even in dread of cold!"
"Aye, it's true."
Ren Yu strode down the street and embarked upon the main hill road. It was a relatively easy path, wide and not too steep. The only hazard was protruding clumps of grass which caught feet unawares. The mountain was cold; he could feel the ground through his boots, chilling his toes. He reached the top of the path where short wooden gates blew open and closed loudly in the wind. Pushing through he could see the side door to the monastery was hooked open; he went through into a small side chapel. The smell of incense hung in the air greeting Ren Yu as he walked up the aisle of wooden benches. Looking down he stared at the black tiles of the floor, they were all etched with a language he did not understand, an ancient script of the tongue of Spirits. Su Jun could read it, at least, he could pick out words. Ren Yu’s friend had been studying since he had been accepted into the order six years ago, three years after that he had been transferred from his own dwindling monastery Machijoko, to Gowla. He still wore the identifying robes of his old brotherhood with thin white stripes down the hood. In Gowla he had met Ren Yu and the two had become firm friends, aided in Ren Yu's opinion by a keen joint interest in fishing, hunting, climbing and falconry. In Su Jun's mind, however the friendship had been solidified by a mutual inquisitiveness as to the nature of life, not shared with other townsfolk.
Ren Yu sighted his friend in the usual spot, bent before a shrine holding a candle. The flame had burned down so far the wick was nearly out; Ren Yu wondered how long Su Jun had been there. He sat down on one of the benches and waited patiently, his friend was quietly mouthing prayers as he rocked back and forth. The monks did this to aid concentration, but watching Su Jun sway constantly had the effect of making Ren Yu feel slightly ill. He turned his head and saw he was not alone, there was another figure sat a few seats away.
"Good evening Brother," Ren Yu politely greeted him, whom he knew to be Jiang Ru, an elderly monk also originally from Machijoko, most often found to be tending the herb garden in the central courtyard of the monastery.
"Good evening Ren Yu. Have you come for Su Jun?" Jiang Ru smiled pleasantly.
"I have," Ren Yu grinned.
"I'm afraid the Almighty seems to have come for him first," Jiang Ru replied with a twinkle in his eye.
Ren Yu laughed and turned to watch his friend again, eyes scrunched tight, his lips moving quickly but inaudibly. "Nah,” Ren Yu smirked back at Jiang Ru, “he's just praying for us to catch the biggest catfish this side of the mountains."
"Is that so?" Jiang Ru smiled gently. "You would need a River Spirit for that."
"No Spirits left around here Brother Jiang Ru, just stories and shrines," Ren Yu shrugged.
"And where, young Ren Yu, do you think they've all gone?" Jiang Ru asked, raising his eyebrows inquisitively.
"Is that a philosophical question Brother Jiang Ru?" Ren Yu smiled.
The old monk laughed, "No, no, quite a genuine one." However, at that point there was a sharp intake of breath, the hot wax from Su Jun's candle had run down onto his hand. Su Jun turned around, saw Ren Yu and grinned, before his eyes then rested on Jiang Ru and he hurriedly restarted chanting.
"He will make a good monk," smiled Jiang Ru approvingly, "he will serve the force of the Almighty."
"The Almighty," Ren Yu repeated the words, not as a question, but as a prompt for the old monk to speak further.
"Ah yes Ren Yu, I've heard your conversations with Su Jun, you doubt the Almighty's purpose, you see no proof of an invisible force that governs both men and Spirits. That could control the flow of all things. But your fish in the stream, do they not start from the tiniest round egg to become the whiskered giants that elude your rods? Is that not proof?" Jiang Ru asked.
"It is proof of a flow,” Ren Yu began, he’d had this same debate with Su Jun many times, “I understand that Brother, but it's not proof of the need to worship. That, I do not understand."
Jiang Ru nodded thoughtfully, "You understand more than you know Ren Yu. Perhaps you should have considered joining the order?"
"I could never have been a monk Brother,” Ren Yu shook his head, trying to conceal his shudder at the thought. “Why should I spend my time thanking a force for giving me a life I choose not to live but instead spend cooped up in a chapel?"
"Come boy,” Jiang Ru chided, “you should know our role is not to be constantly thanking or to forgo a full life, we are more than that. We are the perpetuators of knowledge; we preserve ways that should not be forgotten, truths that should not be dismissed and a past that should be respected."
Ren Yu glanced over at Su Jun, still in a crouching position in front of the shrine, and wondered if his friend could cope with such a heavy sounding responsibility. Just last week Su Jun had accidentally brought a prayer book up the mountainside with them instead of their lunch.
"Why is this knowledge so important?" asked Ren Yu, eying the shrine with offerings of rice and sweet fruit.
"Because Ren Yu, there are those who would seek to forget it."
Ren Yu looked across at Brother Jiang Ru, but the monk was turned away looking at a tablet on the wall, it was inscribed with the same indecipherable language that was etched across the floors.
"What does it say?" Ren Yu asked, frowning to make out the lettering, even though he knew he couldn’t decipher it himself.
Jiang Ru turned back to him solemnly, "It is a warning."
"What does it warn?" Ren Yu raised his eyebrows; this seemed a bit heavy and preachy even for Jiang Ru.
"Not to ask an old monk too many questions before he's had his dinner." Jiang Ru smiled and rose up unsteadily; bunching his red robes about him he left the chapel patting Su Jun lightly on the shoulder as he did so. Ren Yu sighed grinning and looked over to Su Jun who had finished praying. The young novice stood up before a wide smile broke out across his face and he announced with relish, "I'll get the rods."
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