There was honor in combat, in fighting well. Even what Tyrathan and Vol’jin had done at Zouchin, in remaining behind to snipe at the Zandalari and slow them down, was honorable. It allowed monks to save villagers. The Zandalari might have thought it cowardly, but then using siege engines against a fishing village completely lacked honor.
Chen poured tea and handed a small bowl to Tyrathan. The man accepted it, closing the book. He breathed the steam in, then drank. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”
The pandaren forced a smile. “Anything useful in there?”
“The shaman was a good little artist. He drew maps well. He even had a few flowers pressed into the pages. He did sketches of local animals and rock features.” Tyrathan tapped the book with a finger. “Some of the later pages are blank, save for a random series of dots in the four corners. There’s that on pages he’d already written on, and he actually repeated the pattern on a couple that didn’t have it. The blank pages had the symbols inscribed, I think, by someone else.”
Chen sipped his tea, wishing it would warm him more. “What does that mean?”
“I think it was a means of navigation. Put the bottom edge of the page on the horizon and look for constellations matching the dots. That points you in your new direction.” He frowned. “Can’t see the night sky now, of course, and the constellations are different here, but I’m betting we can work out which way they were going when the weather clears.”
“That would be good.”
Tyrathan set his tea down on the book’s leather cover. “Should we clear the air in here?”
“What do you mean?”
The man pointed back in the farm’s general direction. “You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet since the farmhouse. What’s the matter?”
Chen looked down into his tea bowl, but the steaming liquid revealed no answers. “The way you killed them. It wasn’t combat. It wasn’t…”
“Fair?” The man sighed. “I assessed the situation. There were four of them, and they were better suited to the fight we’d have than we were. I had to kill or incapacitate as many as I could as quickly as I could. Incapacitate meant making sure they couldn’t attack us, not effectively.”
Tyrathan looked up at Chen, his expression faintly haunted. “Can you imagine what would have happened had you burst in there and the two on the floor weren’t stuck like that? The one in the corner also? They’d have cut you down and then they would have killed me.”
“You could have shot them through the floor.”
“That only worked because I was below him, and his spell was making a lovely light.” Tyrathan sighed. “What I did was cruel, yes, and I could tell you that war is always cruel, but I won’t show you that disrespect. It’s tha— I don’t have the words for it… .”
Chen poured him a bit more tea. “Hunt for them. You’re good at that.”
“No, my friend, I’m not good at that. What I’m good at is killing.” Tyrathan drank, then closed his eyes. “I’m good at killing at a long range, at not seeing the faces of those I kill. I don’t want to. It’s all about holding the enemy at bay, keeping them at a distance. I keep everyone at a distance. I’m sorry that what you saw disturbed you.”
The anguish in the man’s voice squeezed Chen’s heart. “You’re good at other things.”
“No, actually, I’m not.”
“Jihui.”
“A hunter’s game—at least the way I play.” Tyrathan half laughed, then smiled. “This is why I envy you, Chen. I envy your ability to make people smile. You make them feel good about themselves. Were I to go out and kill enough beasts for a banquet and then turn them into the most exquisite food anyone there had ever tasted, it would be memorable. But if you came and told just one of your stories, you would be remembered. You have a way of touching hearts. The only way I touch them is with steel at the end of a cloth-yard shaft.”
“Maybe that’s who you were, but that isn’t who you have to be now.”
The man hesitated for a moment, then drank more tea. “You’re right, though I fear that’s who I am becoming again. You see, I am good at this killing bit, very good. And I fear I come to like it far too much. Thing of it is, it obviously scares you. It scares me even more.”
Chen nodded silently because there was nothing he could say that would touch the man’s heart. He realized that this was the end of Huojin in the eyes of most pandaren. Giving way to impulsiveness meant giving too little value to anyone and anything. A faceless enemy at a distance was easier to kill than someone a sword’s length away. Huojin, carried to the extreme, made all life valueless, and was simply the harbinger of evil.
But the reverse, Tushui, would logically lead to someone who spent so much time in consideration of everything that no action was possible. That would hardly be the antithesis of evil. Which was why the monks stressed balance. He looked at Tyrathan. A balance my friend is finding elusive.
The question of that balance remained on Chen’s mind for the rest of their trip back to the monastery. Chen sought his own balance point, which seemed centered on whether he should raise a family or continue his exploring. He found it easy to imagine doing both with Yalia by his side, allowing him to have the best aspects of life.
As they traveled, Tyrathan took reckonings using the troll’s journal. “It’s a rough guess, but they’re heading for the heart of Pandaria.”
“The Vale of Eternal Blossoms.” Chen looked to the south. “It’s beautiful, and ancient.”
“You’ve been?”
“I only know its splendor from attending my duties along the Serpent’s Spine wall to the west, but I have not trodden its soil.”
Tyrathan smiled. “I suspect that will change, and very quickly. That’s where we’ll find the Zandalari, and I have a feeling none of us are going to enjoy that reunion.”
19
“Understatement be overrated in a time of war, Lord Taran Zhu.” Vol’jin nodded to Chen and Tyrathan. “I’m glad you both be back.”
The man returned the nod. “Glad to have made it. And glad to hear your voice recovering.”
“Yes, very glad, Vol’jin.” The pandaren brewmaster smiled. “I can make some tea that could help further your recovery.”
The troll shook his head. He noticed some distance between Chen and the man, but now was not the time to explore it. “This be as good as it gonna be getting. For now. With all due respect, Lord Taran Zhu, we be needing to know about this place.”
“Do not judge the pandaren harshly, Vol’jin. Doubtless you will find flaws with how we have done things. You already believe our lack of a formal military, despite millennia without successful invasions, is a mistake. You may yet be proved correct.” The Shado-pan leader gathered his paws behind his back. “From what Chen has told me of the world beyond the mists, you, too, have been faced with catastrophes that could not have been predicted. You could argue that our logic in this matter is flawed, but for millennia it has been valid, so much so that it has become as much a truth as the sun rising with dawn and setting at dusk.”
“Your words be not terribly informative.”
“Save that it alerts you to your prejudices, which could impair your judgment about what you will see.” Taran Zhu nodded toward the map. “References are minimal, but the vale is not unknown. It is even populated, and refugees from recent incursions have been given sanctuary there. Still, we have no survey or tactical information of the sort that you desire.”
“It is as if you hoped, by keeping the vale hidden, you could insulate Pandaria from what lurks within.” Tyrathan looked at the map. “Hiding a problem does not eliminate it.”