Chapter 20: The Registration

In the morning, Disciple Tao found Hao Min sitting on the rock. Sao was awake, washing rust paste from a bowl with water from her flask.

"The founder said you would not come in," Tao said.

"He was right."

"He is usually right about things he does not care about. It is annoying." Tao held out a blank book and a brush. "Still. The sect offers registration to anyone who wishes it. You do not have to stay. You only have to write one true thing."

Hao Min looked at the book. "What is it for?"

"Names have weight here. The founder says a name written honestly can protect its owner. I do not fully understand it, but I have seen it work."

"And if I write a lie?"

"Then you waste paper. We have a great deal of paper."

Hao Min took the brush. The ink was black and smelled of pine. He looked at the blank page for a long time.

What was one true thing?

He had been a lieutenant. He had been rust-eaten. He had been humiliated. He had been angry. He had been afraid. He had been many things, sometimes at once. But those were all past. They were not true things. They were old things.

He dipped the brush and wrote:

I am still changing.

The ink dried quickly. The page did not glow. Nothing dramatic happened. But Hao Min felt a small settling in his chest, as if a door had clicked shut somewhere in a house he had not known he owned.

"That is acceptable," Tao said. "Most people write their names. A few write their regrets. Yours is the first time someone has written a verb."

"A verb is more honest."

"The founder would agree." Tao rolled up the book. "He also said to give you this."

He handed Hao Min a small bundle wrapped in cloth. Inside was a bone brush, an inkstone, and three sticks of ink.

"I told him you do not use proper ink," Tao said. "He said you should have the option."

Hao Min looked at the brush. It was old and smooth at the handle, as if many hands had held it before. He could feel the weight of it.

"Why?" Hao Min asked.

"I did not ask. Asking the founder why is generally unsatisfying." Tao bowed and walked back up the hill.

Sao leaned over. "He gave you a brush."

"Yes."

"That means something."

"It means I have a brush." Hao Min wrapped the bundle again and tied it to his belt. "And an inkstone. And three sticks of ink."

"You are impossible."

"I am consistent."

They sat in silence for a while. The temple gate stayed open. Pilgrims came and went. Bao had not reappeared. Hao Min hoped the man had walked through the gate and kept walking, into whatever life came after being ordinary.

"What now?" Sao asked.

"Now I walk south."

"To where?"

"I do not know. South is enough of a direction."

Sao was quiet. Then she said, "I will come."

"You should stay here. The temple will feed you. They might even teach you to read."

"I can learn to read anywhere. I cannot learn to be useful from anyone else." She stood and shouldered her pack. "Also, you still owe me for the water."

"I carried the water yesterday."

"The day before that, then."

Hao Min stood. His body ached, but the ache was manageable now. He looked at the temple one last time.

Ti Mo was not visible. Probably somewhere inside, doing whatever a man like him did when no one was watching.

Hao Min touched the bundle at his belt. The bone brush was warm through the cloth.

Then he turned and walked down the hill, away from the Nameless Hills, toward the south.

Sao followed.

They passed other pilgrims on the road. Some were going up. Some were coming down. A few recognized Hao Min from the duel and whispered as he passed.

"You are famous now," Sao said.

"Infamous. There is a difference."

"Not to storytellers."

"Then I will have to become something else before the stories settle." Hao Min kept walking. "Stories that settle become legends. Legends become targets."

"What will you become?"

"I do not know yet. Something that moves too fast to be caught."

They reached the bottom of the hill by midday. The Rust Road ended here, or began here, depending on which way you were going. Beyond it lay ordinary dirt, ordinary trees, ordinary dangers.

Hao Min looked back once. The temple was a small shape on the hill, half-hidden by red leaves.

"Will you miss it?" Sao asked.

"No. I was never there." Hao Min turned away. "But I will remember it. That is enough."

They walked south, into the ordinary world, carrying an extraordinary circle between them.

The first village they passed was called Willow Bend. The people there had never heard of the Nameless Hills. They had never seen a Rust Circle. They looked at Hao Min's stained hands with suspicion.

Hao Min kept his head down. He was not here to convert anyone. He was here to pass through.

In the second village, a drunk cultivator tried to bully a farmer. Hao Min did not intervene. Sao did, with a knife to the man's purse. She returned with silver and a satisfied expression.

"You stole from him," Hao Min said.

"He stole from the farmer first. I merely redistributed." Sao tossed him a coin. "Buy bread. We need to eat."

"I do not want his money."

"Then give it to someone worse off. But eat first." Sao bit into a pear. "Heroes who starve are not heroic. They are dead."

Hao Min bought bread. It was fresh and warm. He ate it by the roadside and watched farmers work their fields.

"I could have stopped the cultivator," he said.

"I know."

"Why did you stop me?"

"Because you would have used your circle. And then there would be a story. And then there would be trouble." Sao wiped her mouth. "You are not ready to be a legend yet. You are still learning to be a man."

Hao Min looked at her. "You are wise for a thief."

"I am wise for anyone. Most people are just too proud to listen to thieves."

They walked on, south, toward cities and stories and whatever came next.