The Pilgrimage Chapter 9

     The figure turned slowly to face them, and as they drew closer, they took in the details. The sage was younger than they’d expected, maybe in his early forties, his face partly obscured by a scraggly beard and shoulder-length hair, tangled and wild. His robes were simple, threadbare and dusty, giving him the look of an aging drifter more than a figure of wisdom. Yet his eyes were sharp, steady, and unflinching.

     They stopped a few paces away, waiting, as he regarded them in silence.

     “You came a long way,” he said finally, his voice carrying a steady calm.

     Brad nodded, feeling the weight of the journey settling on him. “We came…for answers.”

     The sage gave a faint smile, though there was no warmth in it. “Answers? Or judgment?”

     Julio, his face set, muttered, “Maybe both.”

     The sage’s gaze swept over them, as if seeing them for the first time. His eyes lingered on Julio. “A soldier, trained to follow orders. But when the orders became an offense to you, you created your own.” He took a step closer, his voice lowering. “The targets you took down—did they even have names by the end?”

     Julio flinched, his throat tight. “You learn to stop thinking about it,” he said softly, his voice rough. “The collateral damage was enough to make anyone snap.”

     The sage’s expression didn’t change. “So you fought back, built up your own rules of engagement.” His gaze shifted to Shen, his voice calm but cutting. “And then someone leaked the details. Those pilots’ names, addresses—all you needed was that and a skilled hand to put it to use. You learned to make weapons, but it was different when you made them personal, wasn’t it?”

     Shen’s face paled slightly, the truth pressing in on him. He’d known it the night he’d wired that first bomb, his hands moving quickly, efficiently, knowing that when it was done, there’d be no going back. He met the sage’s eyes, his voice barely a whisper. “I built the bomb. And I made sure it was meant for them.”

     The sage nodded slowly. “But you didn’t deliver it. No, that would be left to someone else.”

     He looked at Brad, his gaze steady. “And you—you were the courier of destruction, the one to bring it to their door.”

     Brad swallowed, the memories raw as he forced himself to speak. “I took it there. Walked it right up to his house. They called it justice, but…there was a family. Kids, his wife. Collateral. I’d heard that word enough times from them.”

     The sage’s gaze flicked between them, unwavering. “You each became something else in the face of war. You became monsters because the world gave you the tools to become them.”

     He let the words sink in, the silence around them thickening, pressing against them like the weight of an unseen hand.

     “But here you are,” the sage continued, his voice softer, almost reflective. “Not as monsters—but as men, carrying the burdens of what you’ve done. And yet, not all of you made it. Greg came as far as he could, knowing what he’d set in motion. Perhaps that was why he accepted his end with such ease.”

     Brad, Shen, and Julio exchanged glances, the weight of his words sinking in. They had never asked Greg why he had come on this pilgrimage, why he had seemed so at peace with his fate. But now, in the sage’s gaze, it was as though a hidden truth was surfacing.

     “Greg’s story is woven into yours. Every step of this journey, every life you’ve taken, has its roots in his choice. And that choice—it brought you here.”

     Julio lowered his eyes, feeling the weight of that truth settle. They had all carried something here, but Greg had carried it differently—and now they were left to bear it.

     The sage nodded slowly, a hint of understanding flickering in his eyes. “Knowing is only the beginning. Do you want to be forgiven?”

     Shen shook his head, his voice trembling. “No. Just…understood. To know that it mattered.”

     The sage regarded them, a glimmer of something close to compassion in his gaze. “It matters, and it always will. But peace—peace will not come through forgiveness, not for you. It comes from accepting what you’ve become and choosing what you’ll do with that truth.”

     He turned, looking out over the desert, the rising sun casting long shadows across the ground. “When you return home, it will be with the knowledge of what you are and what you did. They stood in silence, absorbing his words, the weight of their actions settling on them anew.

     The sage’s words had cracked open something they hadn’t wanted to face. Greg had been the one to set everything in motion, the one who, through a quiet act of defiance, had made all their actions possible.

     The sage looked back at them, his expression solemn. “But there is more to understand. Greg walked with you, bore the weight as you have, but carried it differently. His was the hand that offered you a path—though it was you who chose to walk it.”

     The silence stretched, each man carrying his own reflections. There was no forgiveness here, but there was understanding, a shared acceptance of the truth.

     The sage gave a final nod, turning to gaze at the valley below. “When you’re ready, return to finish what you came here to find. If you want peace, it will require more than judgment.”

     They looked out over the valley, each man bearing the knowledge of his own past—and a sense of what it had cost them all.