‘following the greater good’ is not what you do. You, Amit, are selfish, and think only of yourself. You think of how you have been wronged, and you react rather than respond. A person hands you an insult, and you rub it into your wounds like salt. Because of this, your training is useless. I hear this constantly from the abbot. He wants you to leave the order, as he has every day since your arrival. He says you do not learn.”
“I learn plenty!”
Woo shook his head. “You can wield even the heaviest swords in our arsenal and throw weapons with a precision I have never seen. When we spar, when you are engaged, I cannot get a strike past you. Someday soon, you will be able to respond well enough to land strikes of your own. Others — and I can see this myself — have reported that you have a curious way of pre-guessing them. They will feint with a fist and strike with a foot, or feint with a sweep and slash with a dagger. But you are not fooled. You will move to block the true attack almost before your opponent has launched it. Some shadow monks claim you read minds; they can get nothing past you. But it is all useless, because your abilities are a complicated series of armaments that deactivate with a single key. Just like your whore mother.”
Amit felt hot blood streak into his hands, which struck of their own accord. He started to rise, but Woo’s open palm smacked his face sideways.
“Or perhaps it’s deactivated with a password,” Woo amended.
Amit looked down at the silver locket, closed in his palm. His grip was too tight, as if he thought he could crush it into his skin, to take it inside his body.
“You are lethal and unstoppable when calm. When your ire is raised, you are as simple to defeat as the child you are. It is an unforgivable weakness. I understand why the abbot wishes you gone. Your anger causes fights and disharmony. Your instability makes your skills useless. You have been here for nine years, Amit. What is the abbot to think? What kind of a monk will you make? What does this say about our brotherhood, if we allow someone so undisciplined to pollute our family? A monk’s life is about control. We can slow our heartbeats enough for a Western physician to think us dead, breathe almost imperceptibly even to a person setting a hand on our chests. We can slow our metabolisms and grow fat. We can speed them to thin. We can crush nuts with a finger and thumb. Yet nothing matters if you cannot summon control.
“I have control.” Amit heard his petulance and hated it. “But when Rafi … ”
“Stop right there. You’ve given Rafi his control. And he does control you, Amit — just not in the passive way you seem to believe. As does Suni. As do I, for that matter. We do not control you by enforcing our will upon you. We control you because you allow it. Because you invite it.”
Amit sidestepped the trap.
“If I listen to you, I am being controlled.”
Woo slapped him again. Amit blinked, caught off guard.
”There is a difference between being taught and being controlled. You are free to turn your back on my teachings, and I encourage you to at least consider it. But in the end, I hope that you are smart enough to question, then turn back toward where I would steer you. Because what I say is best — not for me, but for you. Teaching is nourishment. You may turn away, but that would be unwise. By contrast, control is that slap — something I’m doing to you.”
“Which is what Rafi does to me, when he … ”
“Rafi can only do what you allow. Just as Rafi surrenders his own control — to you, who tempt him into violating the order of peace, control to the abbot, who infuriates all of the children … even control to Amala.”
“Amala?” Amit could see the girl in his mind: two years younger and always flinching back whenever he looked over at her, as if afraid of her shadow. Amala was strange, even among the other girls. Just as Woo had
“I learn plenty!”
Woo shook his head. “You can wield even the heaviest swords in our arsenal and throw weapons with a precision I have never seen. When we spar, when you are engaged, I cannot get a strike past you. Someday soon, you will be able to respond well enough to land strikes of your own. Others — and I can see this myself — have reported that you have a curious way of pre-guessing them. They will feint with a fist and strike with a foot, or feint with a sweep and slash with a dagger. But you are not fooled. You will move to block the true attack almost before your opponent has launched it. Some shadow monks claim you read minds; they can get nothing past you. But it is all useless, because your abilities are a complicated series of armaments that deactivate with a single key. Just like your whore mother.”
Amit felt hot blood streak into his hands, which struck of their own accord. He started to rise, but Woo’s open palm smacked his face sideways.
“Or perhaps it’s deactivated with a password,” Woo amended.
Amit looked down at the silver locket, closed in his palm. His grip was too tight, as if he thought he could crush it into his skin, to take it inside his body.
“You are lethal and unstoppable when calm. When your ire is raised, you are as simple to defeat as the child you are. It is an unforgivable weakness. I understand why the abbot wishes you gone. Your anger causes fights and disharmony. Your instability makes your skills useless. You have been here for nine years, Amit. What is the abbot to think? What kind of a monk will you make? What does this say about our brotherhood, if we allow someone so undisciplined to pollute our family? A monk’s life is about control. We can slow our heartbeats enough for a Western physician to think us dead, breathe almost imperceptibly even to a person setting a hand on our chests. We can slow our metabolisms and grow fat. We can speed them to thin. We can crush nuts with a finger and thumb. Yet nothing matters if you cannot summon control.
“I have control.” Amit heard his petulance and hated it. “But when Rafi … ”
“Stop right there. You’ve given Rafi his control. And he does control you, Amit — just not in the passive way you seem to believe. As does Suni. As do I, for that matter. We do not control you by enforcing our will upon you. We control you because you allow it. Because you invite it.”
Amit sidestepped the trap.
“If I listen to you, I am being controlled.”
Woo slapped him again. Amit blinked, caught off guard.
”There is a difference between being taught and being controlled. You are free to turn your back on my teachings, and I encourage you to at least consider it. But in the end, I hope that you are smart enough to question, then turn back toward where I would steer you. Because what I say is best — not for me, but for you. Teaching is nourishment. You may turn away, but that would be unwise. By contrast, control is that slap — something I’m doing to you.”
“Which is what Rafi does to me, when he … ”
“Rafi can only do what you allow. Just as Rafi surrenders his own control — to you, who tempt him into violating the order of peace, control to the abbot, who infuriates all of the children … even control to Amala.”
“Amala?” Amit could see the girl in his mind: two years younger and always flinching back whenever he looked over at her, as if afraid of her shadow. Amala was strange, even among the other girls. Just as Woo had
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