Marley sat cross-legged on a straw mat. His eyes were closed and he was aware of his breathing in the life force in long slow inhalations. He felt his diaphragm moving up and down like a bellows, the fires that had kept the furnace blazing now glowing lazily in a bed of hot red coals.

He opened his eyes.

"What of the woman?" he asked the monk.

"The wind passes and does not select what it carries. What lies in the path of the wind is chosen by readiness, by weight to be picked up and moved on."

"So it is all random and out of our control?"

"Yes, the choices of others, for us, are random," the monk replied.