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They walked away from the Dotharli camp in silence—leaving behind the lush oasis for the bitter desolation of the empty desert. A hot breeze swept around them, brushing the fine grains of sand to fill in their footsteps. Above them, the sun lit up the western sky in fantastic oranges and golds as it began to sink behind the craggy mountains, with the dusk chasing hard on its heels. The sands beneath their feet still radiated the warmth of the day, and Dietrich knew that they would stay that way well into the chill of desert night.
Some yalms ahead of them, cast in the dramatic light of sunset, lay the body of Geser.
Gosetsu came to a stop, and Dietrich beside him. He heaved a sigh and folded his massive arms across his chest. “Left for the vultures,” he grumbled, regarding Geser’s body with a quiet sort of consternation. “It seems an insult to the man.”
Dietrich let his eyes rest on the corpse. The breeze pulled at his clothing as he lay there, completely, unnaturally still. But of course, there was nothing unnatural about the stasis of death—in fact, Dietrich knew there was scarcely anything in the world more natural. Between his time as chirurgeon and his occupation since then, Dietrich had seen more than his share of dead; and possessed since childhood by a morbid fascination with the mechanics of death, he could not remember a time when the sight of a corpse had unsettled him. Everyone died, in the end; ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and back to the aetheric sea.
In Geser, he could already see the beginnings of decomposition—the ashy, grey tone to his pale blue skin as all the blood drained to the underside of his body, and his limbs had the uncomfortable rigidity of rigor mortis. “And yet, I suppose for the Dotharl, this is not him at all,” he observed neutrally. “It was only but a vessel for the real Geser, who is already on his way back to them.” He pursed his lips. “He will return to them in another vessel just as temporary and disposable.”
Again, Gosetsu sighed. “That much is true. Seen through those eyes…” He trailed off and glanced up at the sky. “I suppose this sight is almost comforting.”
Dietrich hummed in empty agreement, but did not take his eyes from the corpse. With all of the right conditions, yes; perhaps there could be comfort in this mode of death rite. But still, the sight of Geser’s body deposited so callously in the desert, like common refuse, set the tension in Dietrich’s belly. The dead man must have been no more than thirty years old—still so young, with so much life ahead of him. So many things he had yet to see or do, all now denied to him forever; so many moments and experiences that he might have had...
And now he was left to either be torn apart by animals or waste to bones in the sun, without even a shroud or a proper funeral. No real farewell to the man he had been, and no commemoration of the life he had lived. Even if the body was only ever a momentary vessel for the soul inside, those were still the eyes and face of someone beloved to his parents, his friends, his brothers, filled with life just the the day before. Now he was an empty husk; but had been someone, once.
For gods’ sakes, they’d just looked into the eyes of the lover he’d left behind; did it not break her heart that she didn’t get to give him a real goodbye?
Gosetsu stepped forward, leaving Dietrich’s side to draw up to the corpse. He glanced down at it and said a quiet Pardon me , before slipping his katana from his belt and sitting down in the sand beside it. Dietrich pulled his eyes away from Geser to watch Gosetsu, instead.
“When first I heard the tales, I could not help but scoff,” said Gosetsu—probably to Dietrich, but also just as likely to either Geser or himself. “‘Another queer tribe,’ I thought, ‘with still queerer customs.’” He paused here for a moment. The gentle whistle of the wind and the faint rustling of Geser’s clothing in the breeze filled the space between his thoughts. “Yet having borne witness to their rites,” he began again, slowly. “I cannot deny that there is a certain logic to it all.”
A queer tribe with queerer customs seemed a generous way to describe what Dietrich could only consider a death cult. There was nothing strange in believing that the soul could be reborn after death—indeed, there was a kind of poetry to it, fanciful and false though it was—but the veneration of the very act of dying was less quaint. To view their lives as so fleeting and meaningless that there was no reason to safeguard them, and that it was noble to throw them away in glorious violence, and to remember the dead by imposing upon the next generation the same terrible, premature fate as the last…
It had not escaped Dietrich’s notice how sparse the Dotharl’s numbers were in comparison with their neighbors. If he had to diagnose the situation, they seemed to Dietrich to be engaged in an extremely protracted, collective suicide.
And it seemed like an unconscionable waste of opportunity.
But he smoothed out the creases in his manner, and took a breath to hold himself steady. “Logic?” he echoed, prompting Gosetsu to continue.
And Gosetsu obliged him. “Aye—logic,” he said, nodding. “A samurai will die for his master without hesitation or regret. But this is not because he delights in such sacrifice. It is because he has faith that his death will serve a higher purpose.” He paused to take a breath, and when he spoke again, his voice held a certain note of awe: “There is an awakening in that instant, when the heart sings and the blood burns, and his soul…”
Gosetsu trailed off for a moment, turning his head to again consider Geser. His manner was so calm and steady. He fit in perfectly with the sturdy, ancient mountains ringing the Steppe and the placid desert breeze—like a monk in meditation, who contemplates in such quiet and stillness that he becomes part of his surroundings, himself.
But Dietrich’s eyes burned as he watched him, every muscle in his body drawn taut as he waited for him to finish his thought—bowstrings pulled too tight across his spine, in danger of exploding under the pressure. He tried to keep his manner even, but he could feel his pulse in the tension in his neck. “And his soul?” he prompted, a pale vein of that tension leaking into his voice.
Gosetsu glanced back at him, looking at him from the corner of his eye. “His soul finds peace,” he said softly, turning away again. “There is comfort in that.”
Dietrich felt his lips curl in a snarl. “Comfort?” he echoed, sharper than he meant, as his stomach dropped and his heart rate spiked. “What comfort is there in death—for the dead, or the living?”
Gosetsu turned back to look at him again, eyebrows arched in surprise and a question in his eyes; he seemed to consider asking it, but changed his mind. “Very little,” he admitted. “But there is such a thing as a good death, or a bad death.”
Dietrich pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at him, trying to smother the flaring embers of his temper before they could catch. “Perhaps this is only my perspective, as I am a chirurgeon by training—but drawing a line between good deaths and bad seems like a pointless exercise.” A bitter taste rose in his mouth. “Forgive me, but I do not see how death can be good.”
But Gosetsu shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Master Dietrich. I do not mean that death is a good thing; I mean that there are good ways to die, and bad ones.”
Dietrich’s mouth twisted into a frown. “And what, pray, constitutes a ‘good death?' ”
Gosetsu took a deep breath, his massive shoulders rising, and then falling as he exhaled. He turned back to face the horizon. “It has to do with the value of the life, and the value of the death.”
Again, Dietrich narrowed his eyes. “Pray, explain.”
Gosetsu sighed. He let his neck bend, dropping his head and letting his shoulders sag for a moment; suddenly, he seemed very tired. “A samurai dedicates himself body and soul to his master. He lives his life for him, and if he is lucky, there will never come a time where he may have to die for him,” he said. “But if that were the way of the world, there would be no need for samurai at all. So instead, to live a good life, a samurai must live with all of his strength and conviction, so that one day, he will be able to protect his master—and if he cannot protect his master with his life, then he must not hesitate to protect him with his death.”
But then he stopped, pausing for several long moments and lapsing into a heavy, pensive sort of silence. The weight of his silence bore down on Dietrich, threatening to make the tension strung through his muscles snap his bones—but he waited for Gosetsu to finish his thought, eyes burning into the back of his head as the desert breeze swept away the last of his words, still hanging in the air between them. It gathered them up, swept them up into its arms and carried them off, scattering them amidst the fine grains of sand, from there out to the sea far beyond.
“A samurai does not rush off to die and does not dream of the day,” he said at last. With a deep breath, Gosetsu straightened out his back, sitting tall and proud once more. “But if his life is the toll he must needs pay to serve his master—then he is glad that it is all he must pay to do it.”
Dietrich felt a sharp, hot pang in his chest. He snorted, and folded his arms as he stared off past Gosetsu, turning his eyes to the horizon, where the sky met the white desert sands. “It’s an unbearably high price.”
But Gosetsu shook his head. “But not as high a price as the life of his master—nor the shame of letting his master pay it himself,” he said. “A samurai is nothing without his master. If he must die, then let it be for a reason; and if he dies so that his master might live, then he could not ask for a better death.”
Dietrich’s scowl deepened, face twisting. He turned his gaze back to Gosetsu, eyes narrowed to slits behind his glasses. “So what are you saying, then? That your death is worth more than your life?”
“No,” said Gosetsu, shaking his head. “No, never—a dead samurai is worth nothing to anyone.”
“Then what?”
“What I am saying, is that there are things in this world worth more than one’s own life. Death is always a loss—but if one must die, then the death should be equal in value to the life lost. It should mean something to those who live on after you.”
Dietrich pressed his lips into a thin line, scowl pulling still tighter across his brow; his heart ached, still an open wound in his chest. “A meaningful death?” He glanced again at Geser’s body. Of course, all death was meaningful and necessary: fertilizer for the flowers in the decay of the body and the release of aether in the decay of the soul—an unbroken chain wrapped tight around the throats of everything that would ever live upon that star, or any other. Decay was the method of germination; death, of birth.
But all of that mattered little next to the potential of the individual life. The world was so vast, so full of things to be known, done, discovered, and the time each of them was allotted to do it all was already so scant and so fleeting. Could death be meaningful to the dying—knowing that they were losing all of it?
Losing all of what could have been, if fate had just been kinder?
“Aye—for a samurai, the most meaningful thing is the life of his master. One is most useful to his master when he is alive; but a samurai who dies so that his master might live can die knowing that he has done his duty to its fullest. He can be satisfied with his work, and go to his grave without regrets.”
The bitter taste rose again in Dietrich’s mouth, so thick that it was choking. He glanced down, pressing his lips tighter across his teeth. He watched the grains of sand tumble and dance in the breeze, swirling around his boots. It reached up and pushed hot and dry through his hair, dislodging blond strands to whip around his face. Absently, he took his pendant between his fingers, running his thumb along the latch. Silver and black enamel; orange blossom motif—a miniature portrait and a lock of silver hair inside. He pressed his lips tighter. “A samurai lives to serve,” he murmured. “Is that it?”
At last, Gosetsu turned back to him; his eyes were soft and warm as he nodded at Dietrich, offering him a small smile. “Aye—you have the right of it, Master Dietrich. And a death in service is one he could be proud of.”
Dietrich said nothing; he just exhaled softly and closed his eyes. He didn’t even draw another breath as he stood there, with the wind brushing softly across his skin and through his hair, the cold silver of his pendant pinched tight between his fingers.
Thinking about it this way, that must have been how he’d felt then—how he had been able to die as radiant and warm as he had ever been in life.
“A good death,” Dietrich murmured to himself.
He supposed it was almost comforting.