Chapter 9- A Daoist in the Garrison

There was a peace to moving with no expectations. Tian jogged to keep up with the returning cavalry, his black robes flapping and his straw… he was never quite sure what to call it. Hats didn’t usually cover the whole head, face included, in what was closer in appearance to a straw basket. Whatever it was, it bobbed around as he ran, looking as awkward as it felt.

Tian didn’t know what to expect from a city. The streets were wide and lined with big pieces of flat stones. There were gutters for water, though they looked shallower than the ones in West Town. The buildings looked strange to his eyes. They were taller than he expected. The buildings in West Town never exceeded two stories, and while the monastery had fine, soaring halls with high roofs, most of them were just a single story. Taller than a three story building, but strictly speaking, it was mostly empty volume.

Not in Burning Flag City. He wasn’t even sure Burning Flag had houses as he understood the term. The buildings were all four stories tall. No deviations permitted. They were built out of the same stone as the streets. They had the terracotta roof tiles he was used to seeing, but they were thicker than normal. No gaps between the buildings either, but he could see that they weren’t all built at the same time, nor were the exterior walls shared. When a new building was constructed, they built it like it would be standing alone, but flush against the older building.

Sometimes the logic of a place could be deduced from looking at what was built there. Tian was ready to put his hand up and admit ignorance. At least the streets were colorful.

Hawkers and vendors were already on the streets, greeting the dawn with simmering woks full of frying dough sticks and warm soy milk. Others, those with a heartier appetite in the morning, could buy steamed buns, or even skewers of mutton. Tian could see them laid out in neat little rows, chunks of meat the size of his thumb nail skewered on slivers of bamboo. Ready to go down on the coals and be brushed, if his nose was to be trusted, with a coating of spicy oil and cumin.

Tian was suddenly famished. He hadn’t been a minute ago, but seeing a whole street full of cooking food, he could safely say that he was starving. But Ten Man Commander Attun had promised him a meal and there was nothing that tasted quite so good as free. Tian controlled himself. Barely.

The vendors lived here. He could try them all before he left. All of them. Especially the granny with the green bandana and what looked like char-grilled green onions floating on a bowl of noodles and a light broth. She was old, at least a hundred and eighty, maybe even a hundred and ninety. She couldn’t escape.

Tian almost face planted when he remembered he was in a city full of mortals. That granny could be any age under a hundred. He… really didn’t know how to tell the age of mortals based on how they look, beyond “Very Old, Somewhat Old, Eh, Eh But Younger, Twenties Maybe? My Age-Ish, and Kid.”

Everyone cleared out of the way of the soldiers, moving with a casual familiarity. The soldiers kept up the exact same quick walking pace in the city, the horses hooves now loud and clattering on the stone. The mortals kept right on chattering and having breakfast, though they did give Tian plenty of odd looks. He looked right back. The mortals were fascinating!

The people here were dressed in far more variety than he was used to. Rusty brown pants and desert sand colored jackets. Blue shirts with gold embroidery, hats trimmed in fur or felt. Boots too- he was used to the soft, thin soled shoes of the temple. Not so the mortals of Burning Flag City. They had boots of felt or leather, with sturdy leather soles.

It was all just so new. It was bigger than West Town by miles and miles. Bigger than the Depot, and he had thought Depot Four was huge. He had never seen so many people, and it was still early in the morning. The snippets of conversation he heard hardly made sense.

“Still saving for our Bo to get married-”

“Anything for a toothache?”

“Ah, my back is killing me! That turtle soup-”

“Eeeh? Horse traders? Not in this neighborhood.”

They went past every sort of store- grocers with their fruits and vegetables displayed on trays and carts, crafters with their maker’s mark proudly painted above their doors, some with pieces on display and watched over by burly apprentices.

Nobody was talking about the war against Black Iron Gorge. Nobody mentioned heretics. Nobody looked particularly worried about the fact they were on the border of a desert filled with giant carnivorous monsters. They looked like people who wanted breakfast and were chatting with their neighbors. Working in wine shops and pottery shops, and tea houses and hawking their food or trinkets from stalls. Shoveling horse dung off the streets and into wheelbarrows.

People just living.

The patrol trotted its way back to the stables in the military quarter. It wasn’t as walled off as Tian imagined it would be- civilians were wandering in and out of it steadily. Some bringing food, others carrying bundles of what looked like laundry, or pushing wheelbarrows of dung. It seems that, like the Monastery, the Big Brothers in the army needed a lot of servants too. Although they probably didn’t call them that.

“Alright, Barracks Number Eight. Lucky Eight!” Attun chuckled. “You will need to get that basket off if you want to eat, Tea Monk.”

“You would be surprised, Ten Man Commander Attun.” Tian mimed picking up a cup and lifting it under the edge of the basket and slurping. “The purpose isn’t to be anonymous, but to create a sense of being in seclusion no matter where you go.”

His voice trailed off. People were staring at his forearm. His sleeve had slid down while he was miming drinking.

“How the hell are you so pale?” A soldier asked. Not hostile, just tired and bewildered.

“I’m sorry?” Tian had no idea how to answer that.

“Even the officers pick up a tan out here. You look like a teacup of milk.” A different soldier asked, giving himself a good scratch in the process.

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“It couldn’t possibly be a pitcher of milk, could it?” Tian remained hopeful.

The silently shaking heads of ten men somehow managed to be a hundred times more painful than just one would have been.

“This little monk is going to be six one. Just you wait.” Tian muttered. His last growth spurt had stalled out a while back, but he had undergone not one but two bodily reconstructions AND he was cultivating the Hell Suppressing Sutra. If he couldn’t reach his ideal height, he was going to hunt down every last body reforging sutra he could find and make himself the right height.

“Bamboo shoots and mutton.” One of the men volunteered. “That’s what my granny told me. Bamboo, so my body knows to grow tall and straight, and mutton so it has something to build with.” Tian eyeballed the cavalryman. He wasn’t six one, but he was at least five eleven.

“This little mendicant will remember, and do his best to follow the prescription.”

“Still not giving up on the monk thing, huh?” the commander snorted. “Kid, I can see your hands. Leaving aside the fact that only the monks from Pure Land Temple wear those… hat things…” The commander plainly didn’t know what to call them either. Tian felt a surge of vindication. “I can see you have been through hard times. You don’t have to keep playing the part.”

Tian nodded gratefully, then smiled. “This little monk is happy in his role.”

“Oh?”

“It’s got rules. One remains humble and speaks to others with respect. One doesn’t start trouble, but it’s okay to finish it. Everyone is your benefactor, which is nice, even if some people don’t realize they are, or have fallen into sin. Being a wandering monk is a good life, so long as you don’t need much.”