Tao and Other Stories

Tao

"Return only when your search has born fruit." The words of the elder echoed within Tao's mind as the lord of the day, the eternal sun, scorched his face. Six days he had traveled through Kapatagan without even catching a glimpse of its end. The exhaustion in his body and the heat of the early afternoon sun had all but convinced him that his journey through the forsaken wasteland was all in vain. 

He heard it as the whole tribe heard it, the heavenly note. It struck once, but it seemed to be intent on outlasting time itself. His journey started after the note had reached one full year; he left a day after he had returned from tracking a buffalo that had wandered far off the tribal land. Famed even among other tribes as an excellent tracker gifted with the keenest senses, Tao was called upon by the elder to find the source of the eternal note.

Tao's mission seemed hopeless, for the note did not become louder or softer even as he had covered a huge distance. He had slowed down his pace and saw a pool of water on the ground. He approached the pool to drink and to fill his waterskin.

"Do not drink of that pool. I have witnessed many a rabbit die after partaking of that water." The voice was low and much like that of the tribal elder's. Surprised, Tao looked up and saw a dead tree to his right, and in its branches was perched a bird, a gigantic bird, with elegance in forms unknown him. 

Astonished, Tao fell down on his knees and exclaimed, "Haribon, King of the Sky Above! Forgive me for intruding in your domain!"

"This wasteland is no one's domain, Tao of the Barang tribe; only the sky is mine." The eagle flapped his colourful wings, a gesture so majestic to behold, and moved to another branch nearer the tracker. "What oath has brought you to where you stand, and has bound you to journey on?"

Without rising to his feet, and with trembling, Tao narrated his mission to Haribon, its purpose and the oath that bound him to it.

"What I fail to grasp is, how even with my gift of greater senses, I cannot fathom the direction from which it comes from."

"I see." Haribon flapped his wings, sending a rush of dusty air towards Tao, as in preparing to fly. "I am famed for my sight, but even so, I cannot see what is underground. You are as I am, gifted yet limited by fate. I have flown above the clouds, yet above me I found more clouds, far from my reach." And the King of the Sky, with all his innate authority and and grace, took off towards his vast, unending kingdom, leaving the oath-bound tracker in awe and reverie.

Tao strode on, paying no mind to the pain of his legs and the dryness of his throat. A thirst for the source of the sound took a place above all other desires. He walked on when the lesser lights replaced the sun in the sky, and until the great ball of fire rose above the deserted plain once again. When the sun had shortened his shadows, Tao's eyes grew heavy, and his vision was as blurred as the pond he had stumbled upon the day before. His legs gave way to the weight of his body, and the blur turned into black, yet the note remained.