“Smart move, kiddo,” said his father, and sent him on his way with some bread and a new pair of sandals.
Milo hiked for weeks, through villages and across bridges and rivers. He talked with fellow travelers and slept by the fires of kind strangers. Just as he’d anticipated, things got bigger and less pointless the farther he went. Along the way, he heard of armies lurking beyond the mountains. He heard of a strange mystagogue called the Buddha, whose disciples were so holy they didn’t need to eat or drink. He heard of great floods and seas and ships and women so beautiful and skilled that the men who bedded them died from pleasure. The more he traveled, the more he heard and saw and the bigger his world became, which was just as he had hoped.
—
One evening, Milo was enjoying the hospitality of a rich beet farmer and his field hands, and the farmer asked him if his wanderings had a particular purpose.
“I am seeking a teacher,” Milo answered.
“A teacher of what?”
Milo shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters. Something new. Something wonderful or terrible.”
A murmuring around the farmer’s table.
“We can teach you about beets,” someone said. “That’s about it.”
The tallest of the field hands—a thoughtful-looking fellow—spoke up.
“I understand what you’re saying,” he said. “It’s something I want, also. Maybe the teacher you’re looking for isn’t a regular sort of teacher at all. Maybe he is, in fact, someone more like a farmer or a blacksmith.”
Milo knew wisdom when he heard it.
“I would like to come with you,” the field hand continued. “But I have promised my employer here to work through harvest time. Perhaps you could work with us until the beets are ready to pull, and then we can travel together and see what we find.”
Milo accepted, and became a beet farmer for a while, and was thankful.
—
He learned.
He learned about getting up early and carrying water. He learned about beets. Beets, beets, beets. He learned to fix things. He grew stronger.
After the beets were in, he and the field hand—whose name was Ompati—set out to find a teacher, and it was one of the most pleasant times in Milo’s life. They hiked long roads, and met other travelers, and traded stories and songs. Once, they spent a night in a brothel, where Ompati was robbed of his wallet. Twice, bandits tried to rob them at knifepoint, but Milo and Ompati had done farmwork and had knives of their own. They swam in rivers. They slept under the stars. They saw strange and wonderful things: a leper with no legs, who had determined to crawl to Calcutta. They saw a magician who could separate himself from his shadow. Staying overnight with a holy man in a village called Moon Smoke, they drank the blood of a snake.
Milo came to understand that a great many holy men and others who seemed wise were, in fact, just out to get your money.
Don’t let that discourage you, said the old voices in his head. There are real teachers out there. Keep looking.
“All right,” said Milo softly. “I will.”
Once, Milo and Ompati marched alongside a mighty army for several days, trading jests with the soldiers and marveling at the great war elephants. On the fifth day, they began encountering men with shaved heads, in orange sashes, who laughed and waved at the soldiers as they passed.
“Pilgrims,” Ompati explained.
As the sun continued to rise, they saw more and more of these holy madmen.
“Disciples of the Buddha are teaching nearby,” came the rumors and whispers, down through the ranks.
That evening, the army came to an unexpected stop.
News rushed like a weather front: not just disciples of the Buddha, but the Buddha himself! He and his entourage had met the army at a crossroads up ahead, and the army had stopped to let him pass.
“I don’t understand all the excitement,” said Milo.
“Maybe his teachings haven’t traveled as far as Moosa,” said Ompati, “but in places of consequence, they say he is the greatest soul that ever lived. They say he defeated the demon lord Mara in single combat, without even standing up. They say he just touched the earth with his hand and beat Mara back with pure wholeness.”
“Which means what?”
“I don’t know. No one does.”
—
Milo and Ompati got a nasty surprise the next morning when messengers came riding down the lines, shouting to the sergeants and marshals. They looked excited.
The sergeants and marshals, in turn, screamed at their units.
“Quick-march, forward!” shouted the marshals.
Before them and behind them, soldiers, elephants, chariots, and armored horsemen all moved with purpose, looking tough.
“I propose,” said Ompati, “that we will only be in the way here.”
So they left the army behind and waded away between trees.
Arrows started falling around them. One stuck in the ground, nudging Milo’s ankle.
“We seem to have wandered toward the fighting,” observed Ompati.
Milo struggled to breathe. Red-hot terror had a grip on him. He was pretty sure he’d peed himself. Up ahead, and all around, he heard battle cries and shrieks and brave little speeches.
Soldiers rose out of the underbrush. Mean-looking guys in leather armor.
Milo wheezed and blacked out facedown in some kind of Asian raspberry bush.
—
Warm rain.
Milo came awake painfully, feeling sticky. Nearby, someone shuffled in the grass.
Lifting his head and looking around, he discovered an elephant standing over him.
Milo wasn’t startled or afraid. It was clear from the very first instant that the elephant wasn’t going to hurt him. In fact, it seemed sad and confused and stared down at Milo with a peculiar lost look in its eyes.
“Oh, God,” Milo whispered. The elephant’s trunk was half severed. The warm rain that had awakened him was blood misting in the air as the beast exhaled.
A single tear welled in one great eye and rolled down its cheek.
The surrounding forest looked as if it had been stepped on. Everywhere, broken trees, smashed people. Milo wondered what had happened to Ompati.
Focus, said the old voices in his head.
Milo pried a saber from a dead soldier’s hand and took a step toward the elephant.
The elephant met him halfway. With a heavy grunt, it knelt in front of him.
Milo patted its head. Then he cut the elephant’s throat.
A sheet of blood covered him. The elephant gurgled, rolled its eyes, and died.
Birds called out. Wounded soldiers moaned.
Milo sensed eyes on him and slowly turned.
A figure stood nearby. Slightly uphill, a silhouette against the morning sun.
“That was compassionate,” said the silhouette.
Milo nodded. He would have said something, but he hadn’t quite recovered his breath yet.
A cloud passed over the sun, and Milo saw that the figure was an old man. He was bent like a gwaggi vine, with a beard like a whip. Like other old men, his skin hung loosely, but under the hanging skin, muscles stretched like old harp strings. His simple wrap, a worn robe, hung on him like a second skin.
That was all Milo saw at first—a poor old man—until the eyes captured him.