History of the Whirled
"We all live in an urn," a man dressed in rags explained to his young, impressionable audience, "or some sort of clay vessel. The fabric of the cosmos is spun into being by a divine creator, and every facet of its being is spun with the same loving hand."
Several young Chinese men surrounded the Dervish, who smiled benevolently as he described his philosophy. They were seated on the ground within sight of a marketplace. Basak had come here many weeks ago as a wandering "guru"--a word he had picked up in India--from Turkey, where his revolutionary ideas about religion marked him as no longer fit to associate amongst fellow Dervishes. But how could he keep to the old ways when he knew as much as he did?
"Do you believe you are spun from the same cloth as the Emperor?" one student inquired. This student was Cong, one of his more intelligent adherents. They were all still very new to his teachings, and Cong liked to question him at every turn. A less patient man might have been hurt by Cong's approach; Basak appreciated the value of his questions.
Basak stroked his wispy gray beard. "Your question is very interesting. You do not ask if I believe we are cut from the same cloth as the Emperor. Rather, you ask only what I believe of myself. You may find me less than charitable to respond to your question with another, but I find I must, that you can understand my position. Why do you ask only of my thoughts of myself?"
Cong was clearly taken aback, as were his fellow students. They hung on to every word of the exchange like it was nectar from a honeycomb.
His brow furrowed as he sought the words. "You have a great following, Master," he said at last. "We all gather to hear you speak because we believe you know great truth. You speak of a connection to the divine. We know that the Emperor is divine--do you think you are different or the same?"
"A Dervish does not seek self-aggrandizement. Rather, we seek to live peaceably and generously, and to give the same peace to others. Do I believe myself connected to the divinity of Allah, who reigns over us with supreme righteousness? I am His creation; of course I do. As to whether or not I am the same as the Emperor, he is a different man than me. I cannot answer whether or not we are the same in our essence. All I can say is that--with due respect and honor to the Emperor--it is irrelevant to the pursuit of my faith."
"If you are, as you say, connected to Allah, show us a demonstration of His power," Cong finally demanded.
"Do you make such demands of your honored Emperor?" It was a daring question to ask, but Basak feared no man. He respected the laws and customs of the places that accepted him as a guest well enough, but he could not censor himself too much, or his lessons would be lost.
Cong did not relent. "The Emperor is not here! You are! You will show us a demonstration, or I will go home and tell my friends that you are a fraud!"
With a benevolent smile born of sleeping in gutters and begging for food in exchange for wisdom, Basak got to his feet and began the ritual. He moved gently, as though his scrawny frame weighed less than a feather and his feet threatened the strength to propel him into the sky. He spun in a circle, over and over again with increasing alacrity. As he did this his garments fluttered and then lifted about him so that his tunic stuck out like a dish wrapped around his middle.
At first the students were confused but curious. What strange ritual could this be, and what could be the point? They watched and waited patiently, and before long they were completely mesmerized by the consistent motion he made, so hypnotic in effect. Then, as he continued to build speed, he was spinning faster than they could believe or keep track of. Surely he was a man of uncommon talent, but was this a talent given straight from God? How could this be proved?
Basak, too, was impressed by what he did. Only once previously had he ever performed like this, and the effect was one he could not have predicted. He didn't know what would happen this time, but he recalled that his fellow Dervishes told him he had vanished for a brief moment. If this were to happen again, surely these Chinese students would accept his tale of divine inspiration. If it didn't, he would perhaps consider the account of his fellow Dervishes the result of their brains, addled from spinning without the need of divine intervention.
When he slowed and eventually stopped he was able to watch the world spin and images that had doubled and blurred together slowly dance about as they resolved into one form once more. The cloud of dust that he had sent up was gone very abruptly, and in fact, it was night. His head experienced the euphoria that the whirling always caused, and then he stumbled a bit to the side and recovered his balance.
Night. And only two students remained. One was the most ardent adherent to his teachings, Ling. The other was Cong, who stared at him with open-mouthed astonishment.
"What..." Basak began as he took in their amazed faces and their quiet surroundings. "...what happened?"
Ling threw herself at his feet. "You were gone for several hours, Master!" she exclaimed.
Cong stood with reserved posture, his hands folded inside his tunic sleeves. "How did you do that?"
Basak could not answer him immediately. He searched his mind to understand this. Was it real? The sky had become dark, as though a great body had interposed itself between them and the sun. The marketplace had become empty, and the creatures of the night were making their presence known.
"...I do not know," was all Basak could say.
Ling stirred up enough courage to ask him "Can you do it again?"
Basak wanted to know. He wanted to understand this phenomenon, but he was afraid to try for fear of what might happen; the first time, he had only gone away for an instant, and this time he was gone for the entire day. Where--when--would he go? How much of his life would be gone when he finished whirling the next time?
"Master, I am fascinated by what you have shown me. But truly, if you do not know what you have done, what does this mean for your connection to God? Has He acted through you, or have you invoked Him?"
"Perhaps it is both," Basak replied. He was still confused, but he would explore this in greater depth. "I must pray on this, and I will return tomorrow with answers."
Though he intended to do just as he had told them, he didn't know if he could, in fact, produce answers through a single night of prayer. But he prayed and fasted until sunrise, then returned to the spot on which he taught them to pray more until they were ready to return to him. When, at last, his students had returned for their next lesson, there was a great discussion among them about what had happened, and there were also new people in amongst the old.
"Will you tell us today what happened?" Cong inquired, more demure than usual.
"Yes, let us see your miraculous ability!" cried another student.
"I cannot explain it," Basak told them at length. "The truth is that oftentimes we are called upon to accept that which is given to us without question, and to determine only that use which it can be put to in order to accomplish the most good in the name of the Lord.
"Cong, I have advised you many times that the way to Heaven is honesty, yet your street business continues to overcharge for products which cost you little to acquire. You convince your customers that your merchandise is top quality, when in fact it is sub-par. Perhaps now you will listen to me? Perhaps you will finally treat me as the teacher you say I am?"
Cong's face was red. He was abashed and angry all at once. "I do not--! You are--you do not understand!" But even he was not convinced. Basak had taken him off-guard, and there was no way to defend himself.
The gathered crowd didn't even care about Cong's indiscretions. They began to cry out for Basak to demonstrate for them, and soon it had been taken up as a chant. Basak resigned himself to the fact that he would have to do what, admittedly, he had been wanting to since it happened the first time. He would give in to his curiosity and he would explore the ability he possessed, come what may. God had granted it to him for a specific end. It was only by using it that he would determine what that was.
He whirled. This time the frenzy came on faster. It was all he could do to keep his stomach contents down as he lost all comprehension of his surroundings. The speed at which he whirled made them a blur, and it was only mutations in the color scheme that he could tell he had moved on again. With much trepidation he started to slow down once more, and once more he could see that his surroundings had changed.
One of his students sat and waited for him. She looked familiar, but...
...Ling?
She had aged. Maturity had taken much of the fat from her face and granted her eyes more wisdom. She sat cross-legged on the ground in the middle of the night, with none but the stars for company. Her wise eyes widened considerably at his appearance.
He could hardly bring himself to ask. "How long...?"
She replied with a gasp in her voice. "It has been five years, Master!"
"Five...that is impossible!"
"Is it not. I have visited the place of your disappearance every night since it happened, and I have awaited your return."
"What of my other students?"
"Qi and Min Le joined me each night for a long time, but they finally gave you up for gone, saying only that if you returned you would seek us out. Cong has devoted himself to his business. He has many competitors, some of whom seek to expose his dishonesty while they perpetuate their own."
"You must tell him to abandon this way of life," Basak insisted, but she shook her head.
"He will not."
"Then he will perish a slow death as his spirit withers within him! Tell him I have appeared, tell him what I have said. This can only bring misery!"
"But you can tell him yourself! I will gather the others, they will want to see you."
"I cannot stay. I must continue my journey."
"But..."
"There are implications to what I can do. I must examine it in its fullness."
"Master--!"
He started to whirl again. The world sped past him and blurred into lines of color, and soon it resembled nothing more than the interior of a piece of wet pottery that spun on a potter's wheel. It was as if he stood still while the world turned around him, as though he had, for a moment, been cast off the wheel of time. As he slowed down, it caught up to him and tugged him back to its surface. One way or another, he felt that it always would. No mortal could outrun time.
The marketplace had transformed. Now he was much closer to it, or...he blinked and took a good look around. It was daytime, and there were new establishments. It had grown! He had vanished, and in the span of time that he spent riding his spot on the ground forward, he had ridden right past new construction, and many changes. People stared at him as they careened past on contraptions designed to be driven on only two wheels. Others ignored him completely. He cast about for Ling, or Cong, or anyone at all that he had known from before.
A store that sold oddities of different types stood on one side of the street close to him. And the other. One was called "Cong's", the other, "Ming's". Cong's was run-down and coarse-looking, while Ming's contained several items of obvious value right in the shop windows, which were clean and well-presented. Basak turned round to study Cong's further, and he finally resolved to enter the establishment.
The door was locked. He tried it a few times to be certain, and resolved that he could not, in good conscience, break and enter, even if his friend were inside. After all, who knew the implications of his travels? But he determined that he would attempt to enter Ling's, at least.
A demure lady in a blue robe greeted him at the door. She bowed and then shuffled away from him slightly to display her wares. He gazed down row upon row of antiques and other items of value, and then regarded the woman.
"How long has your shop been here?"
"I have been here two years, sir," she explained.
"I see. And what of the shop across the street?"
She scowled when he inquired about Cong's business, as though personally offended. "His business opened four years ago, but was caught in criminality; he was driven out by his own poor money management and forced to beg to subsist. He will not return any time soon."
"Thank you," Basak said. He turned to exit, and the lady approached him with an exquisitely decorated black urn with a gold design. "Won't you consider purchasing from my fine inventory, sir? These items are one-of-a-kind, found nowhere within the dynasty but here."
He studied the piece before he offered his inevitable refusal. It was, indeed, a fine piece, but it was also a study in fraud. The design was not genuine gold, nor was the piece, upon close examination, evenly blown. A cursory look at other items in the shop showed a similar state of forfeiture consistent with someone who intended to fool people out of their money for an ultimately disappointing product. Basak was not a man of means, nor did he truly appreciate finery, but he could still recognize such products when they were presented to him.
"You must not leave, I entreat you," the woman insisted. But Kuruk bid her a peaceable farewell, with much haste, and had to exit while she still talked and tried to coax him back inside. It was unusual for a Chinese woman to exhibit such boldness; this woman had cornered her market, though, and she had done so through possession of unusual character, to be sure.
Cong had not been so fortunate.
Basak whirled once more. He saw the woman's shocked expression briefly before he passed from that time. She had pursued him from the shop to no avail, for when he returned she was long gone, and so was her establishment. When he ceased whirling he had to dive to his right instantaneously to avoid a loud contraption that hurtled toward him with the speed of a horse, but was conveyed upon four wheels like a wagon. The driver of this vehicle shouted an epithet at him and continued along the street, now cobbled from stones! How remarkably the world had changed in his absence, which to him had not been an absence at all. In seconds, it had transformed. Not a single familiar face roamed the streets, though the storefronts were still the same. These people didn't often change their facades, apparently, and most of the businesses had been handed down from one generation to the next.
Cong's was long gone. It was now called "Feng's", and it was a tailor shop. The Chinese people were undergoing a period of upheaval, he gathered from the talk and from the newspapers, in which their leadership was changing. He couldn't be bothered to look into it anymore, however, because his purpose was not to learn about the state of politics. He sought his old students or their descendants, and was finally informed of the "old beggar Cong". He had to see this for himself.
Cong's bedraggled, destitute state was instantly apparent, so much so that Basak could hardly bring himself to approach the poor old man who wore his friend's weather-beaten face. The old man squinted at him over a bottle of drink and failed to recognize him.
"Do you have some extra yen?" he inquired pathetically.
"Cong...what has happened to you?"
Cong coughed miserably and tried to push himself up, but slid back down the wall of the alley onto his behind. "How do you know my name? Have I done work for you...?"
"...no. You were once a...a friend of mine."
Cong squinted again, his eyes bleary. Then he waved his hand dismissively. "I don't know you."
"...very well."
Basak left the alley dejected, and he determined that he could bear no more. He decided to try something different, to break this cycle of disaster that he had entered. Perhaps if he whirled the other direction, if he could follow the left-hand path and go against the grain of time, to return from whence he came...
...it felt as though he fought a powerful tide that wanted to push him forward, to the right, but he was resolved to not resist completely. He had to get back, to be in the proper time. The world turned one way for a purpose, but he didn't want to fight it. He just wanted to get back into sync.
Cong waited for him. Ling was beside him. His two most eager students were as young as he remembered, and they appeared to have been waiting for only a short while.
"Where did you go, Master?" asked a wide-eyed Cong. He appeared as though he might actually accept what he was told. But Basak knew he would have to be diplomatic. He couldn't force Cong onto a new path, but perhaps he could persuade him with patience.
"I have seen your fortunes, and I have much to share..."
"We all live in an urn," a man dressed in rags explained to his young, impressionable audience, "or some sort of clay vessel. The fabric of the cosmos is spun into being by a divine creator, and every facet of its being is spun with the same loving hand."
Several young Chinese men surrounded the Dervish, who smiled benevolently as he described his philosophy. They were seated on the ground within sight of a marketplace. Basak had come here many weeks ago as a wandering "guru"--a word he had picked up in India--from Turkey, where his revolutionary ideas about religion marked him as no longer fit to associate amongst fellow Dervishes. But how could he keep to the old ways when he knew as much as he did?
"Do you believe you are spun from the same cloth as the Emperor?" one student inquired. This student was Cong, one of his more intelligent adherents. They were all still very new to his teachings, and Cong liked to question him at every turn. A less patient man might have been hurt by Cong's approach; Basak appreciated the value of his questions.
Basak stroked his wispy gray beard. "Your question is very interesting. You do not ask if I believe we are cut from the same cloth as the Emperor. Rather, you ask only what I believe of myself. You may find me less than charitable to respond to your question with another, but I find I must, that you can understand my position. Why do you ask only of my thoughts of myself?"
Cong was clearly taken aback, as were his fellow students. They hung on to every word of the exchange like it was nectar from a honeycomb.
His brow furrowed as he sought the words. "You have a great following, Master," he said at last. "We all gather to hear you speak because we believe you know great truth. You speak of a connection to the divine. We know that the Emperor is divine--do you think you are different or the same?"
"A Dervish does not seek self-aggrandizement. Rather, we seek to live peaceably and generously, and to give the same peace to others. Do I believe myself connected to the divinity of Allah, who reigns over us with supreme righteousness? I am His creation; of course I do. As to whether or not I am the same as the Emperor, he is a different man than me. I cannot answer whether or not we are the same in our essence. All I can say is that--with due respect and honor to the Emperor--it is irrelevant to the pursuit of my faith."
"If you are, as you say, connected to Allah, show us a demonstration of His power," Cong finally demanded.
"Do you make such demands of your honored Emperor?" It was a daring question to ask, but Basak feared no man. He respected the laws and customs of the places that accepted him as a guest well enough, but he could not censor himself too much, or his lessons would be lost.
Cong did not relent. "The Emperor is not here! You are! You will show us a demonstration, or I will go home and tell my friends that you are a fraud!"
With a benevolent smile born of sleeping in gutters and begging for food in exchange for wisdom, Basak got to his feet and began the ritual. He moved gently, as though his scrawny frame weighed less than a feather and his feet threatened the strength to propel him into the sky. He spun in a circle, over and over again with increasing alacrity. As he did this his garments fluttered and then lifted about him so that his tunic stuck out like a dish wrapped around his middle.
At first the students were confused but curious. What strange ritual could this be, and what could be the point? They watched and waited patiently, and before long they were completely mesmerized by the consistent motion he made, so hypnotic in effect. Then, as he continued to build speed, he was spinning faster than they could believe or keep track of. Surely he was a man of uncommon talent, but was this a talent given straight from God? How could this be proved?
Basak, too, was impressed by what he did. Only once previously had he ever performed like this, and the effect was one he could not have predicted. He didn't know what would happen this time, but he recalled that his fellow Dervishes told him he had vanished for a brief moment. If this were to happen again, surely these Chinese students would accept his tale of divine inspiration. If it didn't, he would perhaps consider the account of his fellow Dervishes the result of their brains, addled from spinning without the need of divine intervention.
When he slowed and eventually stopped he was able to watch the world spin and images that had doubled and blurred together slowly dance about as they resolved into one form once more. The cloud of dust that he had sent up was gone very abruptly, and in fact, it was night. His head experienced the euphoria that the whirling always caused, and then he stumbled a bit to the side and recovered his balance.
Night. And only two students remained. One was the most ardent adherent to his teachings, Ling. The other was Cong, who stared at him with open-mouthed astonishment.
"What..." Basak began as he took in their amazed faces and their quiet surroundings. "...what happened?"
Ling threw herself at his feet. "You were gone for several hours, Master!" she exclaimed.
Cong stood with reserved posture, his hands folded inside his tunic sleeves. "How did you do that?"
Basak could not answer him immediately. He searched his mind to understand this. Was it real? The sky had become dark, as though a great body had interposed itself between them and the sun. The marketplace had become empty, and the creatures of the night were making their presence known.
"...I do not know," was all Basak could say.
Ling stirred up enough courage to ask him "Can you do it again?"
Basak wanted to know. He wanted to understand this phenomenon, but he was afraid to try for fear of what might happen; the first time, he had only gone away for an instant, and this time he was gone for the entire day. Where--when--would he go? How much of his life would be gone when he finished whirling the next time?
"Master, I am fascinated by what you have shown me. But truly, if you do not know what you have done, what does this mean for your connection to God? Has He acted through you, or have you invoked Him?"
"Perhaps it is both," Basak replied. He was still confused, but he would explore this in greater depth. "I must pray on this, and I will return tomorrow with answers."
Though he intended to do just as he had told them, he didn't know if he could, in fact, produce answers through a single night of prayer. But he prayed and fasted until sunrise, then returned to the spot on which he taught them to pray more until they were ready to return to him. When, at last, his students had returned for their next lesson, there was a great discussion among them about what had happened, and there were also new people in amongst the old.
"Will you tell us today what happened?" Cong inquired, more demure than usual.
"Yes, let us see your miraculous ability!" cried another student.
"I cannot explain it," Basak told them at length. "The truth is that oftentimes we are called upon to accept that which is given to us without question, and to determine only that use which it can be put to in order to accomplish the most good in the name of the Lord.
"Cong, I have advised you many times that the way to Heaven is honesty, yet your street business continues to overcharge for products which cost you little to acquire. You convince your customers that your merchandise is top quality, when in fact it is sub-par. Perhaps now you will listen to me? Perhaps you will finally treat me as the teacher you say I am?"
Cong's face was red. He was abashed and angry all at once. "I do not--! You are--you do not understand!" But even he was not convinced. Basak had taken him off-guard, and there was no way to defend himself.
The gathered crowd didn't even care about Cong's indiscretions. They began to cry out for Basak to demonstrate for them, and soon it had been taken up as a chant. Basak resigned himself to the fact that he would have to do what, admittedly, he had been wanting to since it happened the first time. He would give in to his curiosity and he would explore the ability he possessed, come what may. God had granted it to him for a specific end. It was only by using it that he would determine what that was.
He whirled. This time the frenzy came on faster. It was all he could do to keep his stomach contents down as he lost all comprehension of his surroundings. The speed at which he whirled made them a blur, and it was only mutations in the color scheme that he could tell he had moved on again. With much trepidation he started to slow down once more, and once more he could see that his surroundings had changed.
One of his students sat and waited for him. She looked familiar, but...
...Ling?
She had aged. Maturity had taken much of the fat from her face and granted her eyes more wisdom. She sat cross-legged on the ground in the middle of the night, with none but the stars for company. Her wise eyes widened considerably at his appearance.
He could hardly bring himself to ask. "How long...?"
She replied with a gasp in her voice. "It has been five years, Master!"
"Five...that is impossible!"
"Is it not. I have visited the place of your disappearance every night since it happened, and I have awaited your return."
"What of my other students?"
"Qi and Min Le joined me each night for a long time, but they finally gave you up for gone, saying only that if you returned you would seek us out. Cong has devoted himself to his business. He has many competitors, some of whom seek to expose his dishonesty while they perpetuate their own."
"You must tell him to abandon this way of life," Basak insisted, but she shook her head.
"He will not."
"Then he will perish a slow death as his spirit withers within him! Tell him I have appeared, tell him what I have said. This can only bring misery!"
"But you can tell him yourself! I will gather the others, they will want to see you."
"I cannot stay. I must continue my journey."
"But..."
"There are implications to what I can do. I must examine it in its fullness."
"Master--!"
He started to whirl again. The world sped past him and blurred into lines of color, and soon it resembled nothing more than the interior of a piece of wet pottery that spun on a potter's wheel. It was as if he stood still while the world turned around him, as though he had, for a moment, been cast off the wheel of time. As he slowed down, it caught up to him and tugged him back to its surface. One way or another, he felt that it always would. No mortal could outrun time.
The marketplace had transformed. Now he was much closer to it, or...he blinked and took a good look around. It was daytime, and there were new establishments. It had grown! He had vanished, and in the span of time that he spent riding his spot on the ground forward, he had ridden right past new construction, and many changes. People stared at him as they careened past on contraptions designed to be driven on only two wheels. Others ignored him completely. He cast about for Ling, or Cong, or anyone at all that he had known from before.
A store that sold oddities of different types stood on one side of the street close to him. And the other. One was called "Cong's", the other, "Ming's". Cong's was run-down and coarse-looking, while Ming's contained several items of obvious value right in the shop windows, which were clean and well-presented. Basak turned round to study Cong's further, and he finally resolved to enter the establishment.
The door was locked. He tried it a few times to be certain, and resolved that he could not, in good conscience, break and enter, even if his friend were inside. After all, who knew the implications of his travels? But he determined that he would attempt to enter Ling's, at least.
A demure lady in a blue robe greeted him at the door. She bowed and then shuffled away from him slightly to display her wares. He gazed down row upon row of antiques and other items of value, and then regarded the woman.
"How long has your shop been here?"
"I have been here two years, sir," she explained.
"I see. And what of the shop across the street?"
She scowled when he inquired about Cong's business, as though personally offended. "His business opened four years ago, but was caught in criminality; he was driven out by his own poor money management and forced to beg to subsist. He will not return any time soon."
"Thank you," Basak said. He turned to exit, and the lady approached him with an exquisitely decorated black urn with a gold design. "Won't you consider purchasing from my fine inventory, sir? These items are one-of-a-kind, found nowhere within the dynasty but here."
He studied the piece before he offered his inevitable refusal. It was, indeed, a fine piece, but it was also a study in fraud. The design was not genuine gold, nor was the piece, upon close examination, evenly blown. A cursory look at other items in the shop showed a similar state of forfeiture consistent with someone who intended to fool people out of their money for an ultimately disappointing product. Basak was not a man of means, nor did he truly appreciate finery, but he could still recognize such products when they were presented to him.
"You must not leave, I entreat you," the woman insisted. But Kuruk bid her a peaceable farewell, with much haste, and had to exit while she still talked and tried to coax him back inside. It was unusual for a Chinese woman to exhibit such boldness; this woman had cornered her market, though, and she had done so through possession of unusual character, to be sure.
Cong had not been so fortunate.
Basak whirled once more. He saw the woman's shocked expression briefly before he passed from that time. She had pursued him from the shop to no avail, for when he returned she was long gone, and so was her establishment. When he ceased whirling he had to dive to his right instantaneously to avoid a loud contraption that hurtled toward him with the speed of a horse, but was conveyed upon four wheels like a wagon. The driver of this vehicle shouted an epithet at him and continued along the street, now cobbled from stones! How remarkably the world had changed in his absence, which to him had not been an absence at all. In seconds, it had transformed. Not a single familiar face roamed the streets, though the storefronts were still the same. These people didn't often change their facades, apparently, and most of the businesses had been handed down from one generation to the next.
Cong's was long gone. It was now called "Feng's", and it was a tailor shop. The Chinese people were undergoing a period of upheaval, he gathered from the talk and from the newspapers, in which their leadership was changing. He couldn't be bothered to look into it anymore, however, because his purpose was not to learn about the state of politics. He sought his old students or their descendants, and was finally informed of the "old beggar Cong". He had to see this for himself.
Cong's bedraggled, destitute state was instantly apparent, so much so that Basak could hardly bring himself to approach the poor old man who wore his friend's weather-beaten face. The old man squinted at him over a bottle of drink and failed to recognize him.
"Do you have some extra yen?" he inquired pathetically.
"Cong...what has happened to you?"
Cong coughed miserably and tried to push himself up, but slid back down the wall of the alley onto his behind. "How do you know my name? Have I done work for you...?"
"...no. You were once a...a friend of mine."
Cong squinted again, his eyes bleary. Then he waved his hand dismissively. "I don't know you."
"...very well."
Basak left the alley dejected, and he determined that he could bear no more. He decided to try something different, to break this cycle of disaster that he had entered. Perhaps if he whirled the other direction, if he could follow the left-hand path and go against the grain of time, to return from whence he came...
...it felt as though he fought a powerful tide that wanted to push him forward, to the right, but he was resolved to not resist completely. He had to get back, to be in the proper time. The world turned one way for a purpose, but he didn't want to fight it. He just wanted to get back into sync.
Cong waited for him. Ling was beside him. His two most eager students were as young as he remembered, and they appeared to have been waiting for only a short while.
"Where did you go, Master?" asked a wide-eyed Cong. He appeared as though he might actually accept what he was told. But Basak knew he would have to be diplomatic. He couldn't force Cong onto a new path, but perhaps he could persuade him with patience.
"I have seen your fortunes, and I have much to share..."
