Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [188]
"Like Black Sleeve," I said, remembering.
He nodded. "In Dharma there are many more teachings, many more schools. They practice breathing meditation, but not like the Five Styles." Bao pursed his lips. "To follow the Way is to seek to live in harmony and balance with the world. To follow Dharma is to seek to be free of the world."
Suyin rose and spoke to Bao, pointing at a smaller figurine, a bronze woman standing gracefully beside the Enlightened One.
"That is Guanyin," he said to me. "She Who Hears Our Prayers. She is one who found enlightenment, but came back to help the suffering."
Suyin held out a stick of incense. "Now you make prayer."
I hesitated, then shook my head. "I'm sorry. I can't pray to a god I've only just met." Bao chuckled. Suyin thrust the incense at me and said somewhat insistent and aggrieved in her dialect. I put my hands behind my back, refusing her offer. "I'm sorry, but I can't! Bao, tell her I'm sorry."
He spoke soothingly to her. In time she relented and accepted my refusal, though it was clear it troubled her.
Later, I talked to Bao about it.
"Was that wrong?" I asked. "Did I offend her?"
"No," he said slowly. "Scared her a little, maybe. She can't understand why you wouldn't offer a prayer. I explained that you are a very strange barbarian girl who worships a bear, and that she must give you time."
"It's just…" I shrugged. "I don't know. I've been trying so hard to learn and understand, when I don't even know why I'm here in the first place. It was a shock to discover there are still so many big things I don't know. Big things right here on this bedamned ship, right under my nose."
"I know." Bao gave me a sympathetic look. "I'm a peasant-boy a long way from home, remember?"
"Aye, but you're going home," I reminded him.
He ran a few strands of my hair through his fingers. "You'll like it there. Look how well you speak the Shuntian tongue already. Better than I ever learned yours."
"Aye, because I've had naught else to do but practice for weeks on end!"
Bao laughed. "You'll see."
"When?"
"Soon," he promised. "We will sail into Guangzhou harbor, and then Imperial barges will take us up the Grand Canal to Shuntian. We will help Master Lo to drive out the demon inside the beautiful Princess Snow Tiger. Lord Jiang will relent, all will be forgiven, and the Emperor will shower us with rewards." He smiled smugly. "And then at last you will realize you're in love with me, and we will marry and have many fat, happy babies like in your D'Angeline hero's story."
I eyed Bao doubtfully. He didn't have an ounce of fat to spare, and I couldn't imagine our children would either. "Fat babies, eh?"
"Round as dumplings," he said cheerfully. "You'll see."
I sighed. "Well, I hope you're right about the first part."
He was right about one thing, at any rate. After being at sea for so long that my previous life had begun to seem like a half-remembered dream, the end of our journey was in sight. We reached the coast of Ch'in and began inching our way farther north.
Days passed.
Weeks.
The day I heard a sailor cry out from the observation platform in the tall center mast, I scarce dared credit it. But the cry was taken up and echoed by a hundred other tongues, the ship's crew and myriad passengers bursting into a babble of excitement.
"Guangzhou! Guangzhou!"
"Truly?" I whispered to Master Lo Feng. "We'll make landfall today?"
He nodded. "Truly."
Guangzhou was situated at the mouth of a great river delta. With ponderous grace, the enormous ship entered the delta and made for the harbor. I saw clusters of buildings and the green haze of willow trees. Soon, we would leave the sea behind us. I clutched the railing of our deck and forced myself to breathe the Breath of Earth's Pulse, slow and deep, containing my excitement.
"Uh-oh," Bao muttered.
Master Lo stroked his beard. "Hmm."
Half a dozen