'I was told he was born on one of the moons, and fell to Ers on a burning rock.'
The old man shook his head. 'He was born in my homeland, Honshu, six hundred and forty-nine years ago. That is the birthplace of Daoism. The Great Fool never set foot away from Honshu, despite all your legends to the contrary. It was his Great Disciple who brought the Way to the Miders, and it was because of her and her own disciples that it spread in its various forms across the southern lands, including your own. Now, tell me, do you meditate?'
'Like the monks?'
'Yes, like the monks.'
Nico shook his head.
'Hoh. Then you know nothing but religion, as I expected. In my order we are also Daoists, but we follow the teachings of the Great Fool without all this nonsense that has grown up around his words. If you are to follow his way, as you should do if you are to become a true Rshun, then you must forget all those things and focus on only one thing. You must learn how to be still.'
Nico nodded slowly. 'I see.'
'No, you do not, but you will begin to. Now, do as I tell you. Place your left hand in your right. Yes, like that. Now straighten your back. More so, you are still slouching. Good. Keep your eyes partly open. Choose a point in front of you and stay focused on it. Breathe. Relax.'
Nico breathed, perplexed. He could not see how this had anything to do with the business of Rshun.
'Observe the air as it enters your nostrils, moves through you, exits. Breathe deeply, into your belly. Yes, just so.'
'Now what?' Already his knees were beginning to ache.
'Simply sit. Allow your thoughts to settle. Let your mind become empty.'
'What is the point of all this?'
A slight rush of air from Ash's nostrils, but still a steady gaze.
'A mind that is forever busy is sick. A mind that is still flows with the Dao. When you flow with the Dao, you act in accordance with all things. This is what the Great Fool teaches us.'
Nico tried to do as the old man instructed. It was like trying to juggle three things at once: watch the movement of his breathing; keep his back erect; stay focused on a chip of wood on the rail in front of him. But he kept forgetting to pay attention to one or the other, and frustration began to build in him. Time stretched out till he was unable to tell if he had been sitting there for moments or hours.
It seemed that the more he tried to be still, the more his mind wanted to chatter to itself. His face itched, his straightened spine ached, and his knees throbbed with pain. It could easily have been a form of torture, and after a while he purposely set his mind to other things: where the ship was heading, and what was being served for dinner, anything that might take him away from his discomforts.
It felt like several hours had passed when a bell rang out to signal the end of the hour.
Ash rose with a soft rustle of his robe. This time it was the old man who helped Nico to his feet.
'How do you feel?'
He chose not to say the first thing that came to mind. 'Calm,' he lied, nodding. 'Very still.'
The old farlander's eyes lit up with humour.
*
Later that day the ship descended several hundred feet in the hope of finding a more favourable wind, and indeed she found herself in a stream of fast air bearing north-west. On the raised quarterdeck at the rear of the ship, his oiled black hair flapping over to one side of his head, the captain barked orders for the tailsculls to be trimmed and the mainsculls to be let out, his deep voice sending men scurrying into the rigging even before he was finished. Captain Trench was a tall man of perhaps thirty years of age, clean-shaven and gaunt in the extreme. His bony white hands rested in the pockets of a grey-blue navy overcoat of no visible rank; an affectation of sorts, or perhaps an indication of some earlier naval career, since his command now was of nothing more than a merchant vessel – though admittedly a rather remarkable one. His one good eye peered upwards at the envelope of gas keeping them aloft, which rippled ceaselessly along its windward side; while, on his shoulder, his pet kerido chattered in his ear as though in conversation, and shifted a leg for balance as he did the same beneath it. Like a fish, the Falcon turned, squirming, into the flow, her deck pitching over as she slewed around, still shedding height.
Nico gripped the rail with whitening fingers. He listened anxiously to the creaks of the wooden struts over his head that connected the envelope to the hull. The great curved mainsculls on either side of the envelope had caught the wind full now; next to the wheel, a crewman studying a spinning instrument called out the speed as the ship surged ahead.
They were leaving the Free Ports at last.
That evening they dined with the captain in his stately cabin beneath the quarterdeck, a low slab of a room that spanned the entire breadth of the ship. Windows lined the wall space, thick watery panes of glass divided into diamonds by crisscrossings of lead, some panes coloured in translucent green or yellow. Beyond them, the horizon merged with clouds lit by a falling ball of sun.
The meal was a wholesome affair of rice soup, roasted potatoes, green vegetables, smoked game of some kind, and wine. The courses were served on bone-white crockery ceramics, fine and expensive-looking stuff. Each piece was decorated with the central motif of a falcon in flight. A gift to the captain, Nico assumed.
There was little talk as they each fell upon the steaming food. Ash and the captain both ate with the concentration of men intent on savouring what they still could in life while the going was fair. Dalas, the captain's second-in-command – a big, dreadlocked Corician wearing an open leather jerkin with a curved hunting-horn slung from his neck – was a mute apparently from birth. Even the captain's pet kerido, excitable at first around the two guests present for dinner, now sat quietly on the table before his master's plate, softly clacking its beak and drooling in an attentive way as the man ate. The animal reminded Nico of Boon, back home in the cottage, when Nico had sat eating whatever half-heartedly prepared meal his mother had cooked for them, and surreptitiously passing morsels beneath the table. He had never seen a kerido before though had heard of them, from street performances of The Tales of the Fish recounting stories of merchants venturing to the forest-oasis in the shallow desert, and meeting with madness and death. The Tales always portrayed the kerido as a vicious creature despite its small size. With one of the creatures sitting before him now, Nico could imagine why. The colours of its tough hide invoked images of lush vegetation draped in shadow, and furtive movement, and the sudden pounces of a predator. He had not realized it was possible to make a pet of one.
Red wine had been produced from a locked cabinet fixed to the floor, and Ash and Dalas and the captain were now well into their second bottle, while Nico still sipped from his first glass. He suspected the pair of them were already a little drunk.
'It's good to see you on your feet at last,' Captain Trench observed quietly, as he used his handkerchief as a napkin to dab at his pale lips, and favoured Nico with a glance from his blind white eye, as though he could see more clearly with it. Even in the soft sunset hues that filled the cabin, his skin had a pallied complexion, like the slick greyness of rain.
Ash grunted at the remark, and Nico glanced towards the old man, but the farlander refused to return his gaze.
'A tricky business, adjusting to big sky,' Trench continued in his soft, clipped accent suggestive of a wealthy education. 'Worse than being at sea, most will inform you. Well, it's no shame on you, the reaction. Believe me, I am hardly any better myself when I make it back to land. It takes me – what – a full day in bed with a galloping whore before I feel steady again.' And he flashed Nico a good-natured smile, with a cock of an eyebrow, before looking quickly away again as though shy at having said too much.