The Tenth Peak.
Rudra appreciated that. He had never liked things that ended quickly — meals, conversations, storms. A sunset that dragged itself across the sky like it had somewhere to be but wasn't quite ready to leave yet. That was the kind worth sitting for.
He had been on this mountain for eleven days. Not meditating. Not cultivating. Just sitting. The wind came and went. The temperature dropped at night and he noticed it the way you notice an old injury. Present. Familiar. Not particularly interesting anymore.
Below him, somewhere past the treeline and the distant suggestion of civilization, people were probably doing important things. He found he couldn't remember what important things felt like from the inside.
The cloud drifted closer.
Same one that had been keeping him company since the third day. A wide, unhurried thing that moved like it had made peace with having nowhere specific to be. He decided on day four that it had good character.
"You know," he said, "I thought it would feel different."
The cloud didn't answer. It never did. That was one of the things he liked about it.
"Nirvana." He let the word sit in the air between them. Tasted it. Turned it over. "Everyone who ever chased it described it like an arrival. Like you spend your whole life walking and then you get there and the walking stops." He paused. "The walking stopped. That part was accurate."
A strand of his hair moved in the wind. White, now. Had been for about forty years. He didn't remember exactly when the last of the dark was gone. Just noticed one morning and thought, hm.
"What they don't tell you," he continued, "is that it's quiet. Not peaceful-quiet. Just quiet. Like a room after everyone leaves." He glanced at the cloud. "You'd think after everything it would be louder. Some kind of acknowledgment. Thunder, maybe."
The sun dipped another degree. The sky shifted into that color that existed for maybe four minutes on a clear evening and disappeared before you could decide what to call it.
He watched it without blinking.
There was something he needed to say. He had known for three days that there was something he needed to say and had been waiting for it the way you wait for a word sitting just behind your tongue. Present. Almost there. Not quite.
"I'm not leaving instructions," he said finally. "I want to be clear about that. This is not a manual. If whoever comes next wants a manual they can go find one. There are plenty. Most of them are wrong but at least they're organized."
The cloud shifted. Just slightly.
"What I am saying is this." He leaned back on his palms. The stone was cold. He noticed it. Didn't mind it. "Everything I chased. Every technique, every understanding, every law I broke open and looked inside. It all came back to the same thing. Not a principle. Not a philosophy. Just I. The fact of I. The irreducible, inarguable, prior-to-everything fact that something here is aware. That was here before the first cultivation stage and will remain after the last."
He was quite for a moment.
"The world will try to make that I into something manageable. Something that fits inside a framework. Something that bows when the right authority tells it to bow." A faint sound escaped him. Not quite a laugh. Almost. "Let it try."
The unnamed color was fading. Purple creeping in from the east, patient and inevitable.
"I achieved Nirvana," he said, more to himself than the cloud. "I stood at the threshold of everything and looked at it and it looked back and neither of us blinked." A pause. "And then I thought — is that all?"
This time it was a laugh. Small. Genuine. The kind that surprised even him.
"Don't misunderstand. It was enough. Exactly what it was supposed to be. I'm not complaining." He looked at the cloud directly. "I just think the story isn't finished yet. I can feel it the way you feel weather coming. Not with any particular sense. Just a knowing."
The sun touched the horizon.
He watched it go.
"Aham Eva Satyam," he said quietly. The words fell into the air like stones into still water. I alone am truth. Not a declaration. Just a fact stated plainly, the way you'd confirm a direction to someone who asked.
He had been many things across this life. Ruthless when it required ruthlessness. Still when stillness was the answer. He had broken things that deserved breaking and left things standing that surprised even him by being worth leaving. He had not always been kind. He had always been honest.
He decided that was an acceptable accounting.
The last silver of sun disappeared.
The cloud caught the final light and turned briefly, improbably gold.
"Good talk," Rudra said.
He closed his eyes.
The mountain was quite.
The cloud drifted on.