Feng stopped the jeep and Kade climbed out. The minds of the monks caressed his, bathed him in their peace and tranquility. He walked towards one at random, dazed by this. And as one, the monks dropped to their knees on the cobblestones.

“Bo Tat,” he heard. “Bo Tat.” A hundred voices said it. He didn’t know the words but he could see the meaning of it in their minds, their hundred minds merged as one.

Bodhisattva. Heroic-minded one. Bringer of light. He who would sacrifice himself, be reborn in suffering, time after time, until every living being reaches enlightenment.

Kade’s breath came fast. His heart was bursting. So much beauty. Amid all the pain and horrors of the world, there was so much beauty in the world. The way the minds of the monks intertwined, the way they connected to one another.

He caught an echo of those million minds he could feel when he tried, a thin layer of consciousness encircling the globe, still shapeless, still unformed. Those million minds could be like this, connected, merged, mutually comprehending, more than the sum of their parts. He closed his eyes and the dream pulled at him, tried to tug him out of the here and now.

Kade opened his eyes, forced himself back to the present, reached out the hundred monks before him with his thoughts. “I am not Bo Tat,” he told them with a laugh. Not enlightened. Not heroic. “I’m a novice. Less than a novice.”

He turned as he spoke, to take them all in, speak to them all.

“You are the brave ones,” he told them. “You are the ones risking your lives to shelter us. You are the ones who’ll build a better world. You are the beginning of something much bigger.”

He felt them smiling, joy and hope rising in unison across a hundred minds.

Then there was another mind behind him, harder, closed off. He finished the turn and came face to face with the man. Older than the rest. Tall, sharp featured, with dark expressionless eyes. The abbot.

“Welcome, Kaden Lane.” The voice carried no warmth.

Kade bowed and lowered his eyes to show respect.

“Thank you so much for taking us in.”

The old monk nodded. “I am Thich Quang An. This way. I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Feng grabbed their packs and they followed him. The monks rose as they left the courtyard. Two of them fell in behind Kade and Feng.

Quang An led them to a branch in the path. He rattled off something in Vietnamese to the two monks who’d followed them, then turned to Feng. “Dat and Lunh will take you to your rooms to get settled. Kaden, come with me to my quarters. There’s something I want to show you.”

Feng gave Kade a curious look. Kade shrugged. Feng shrugged back, and then he was off with their packs and the two monks.