Grandmaster by Molly Cochran

you gave up your blanket in shame, you learned to endure cold. Those small sufferings were like the first drops of water to come into this stream. With many drops, there will be enough water to flow eternally, with enough force to move through solid rock. That is the magic you will learn, my son. It is great magic, indeed."
    Justin picked up the rock. "A century?" he asked.
    "Only a century. Now cross the lake with me."
    He wrapped his garments around his legs and led the boy into the freezing water. "You will not die from the cold because you have learned to endure cold," Tagore said. "Your little puddle is already growing into a stream."
    He smiled, and then he was below the surface of the lake, pulling the boy behind him. Justin sputtered and coughed, trying to keep his head above water as he rushed away from shore. He was freezing. In a matter of minutes, his arms and legs felt numb, and his stomach knotted painfully.
    "Tagore!" he screamed, gulping water. "Tagore!"
    But the monk didn't surface. He continued through the water, dragging Justin's cramping, panicking little form with him.
    He couldn't breathe. He was sure he was going to die. Feeling faint, he loosened his grip on Tagore's hand. To his surprise, the monk released him without any effort to hold on. But it was too late, anyway. Slowly Justin began to sink, falling into unconsciousness.
    When he came to, he was still in the lake, but moving again, skimming once more over the surface of the water. He bucked in panic, filling his nostrils with water, cramping once again with the cold.
    And again, the sure hands released him.
    Justin understood.
    He let himself go limp. Immediately the hands of his teacher enclosed his wrists. He felt himself being swept with Tagore's powerful movement underwater, and forced himself not to fight it. It was difficult. His body wanted to fight, screamed with urgency. But each time he felt himself involuntarily stiffen, the hands that held his wrists loosened tentatively.
    Finally, to control himself as much as he could, he gulped in all the air he could and then submerged his head underwater. Without the fight for air, his body relaxed. When he could no longer hold his breath in his lungs, he brought himself up for another gasp. This time, he released his breath slowly, taking as long as he could. To his surprise, he didn't struggle when he came up for air again. It just filled his lungs as easily as ...
    As easily as breathing, he thought. That was all it was. Breathing.
    His periods underwater grew imperceptibly longer with each breath. At last, when he could see the rhododendrons at the far end of the lake, he stopped thinking about breathing, stopped thinking of his body. The only thought in his mind was a feeling of coming home, of seeing the tree again, the blue hat.
    The tree?
    Hail, O Wearer of the Blue Hat.
    He stiffened. Tagore released him and emerged minutes later on the shore behind the circle of flowers.
    Struggling, Justin swam the rest of the distance and walked over to join him. "I guess I don't learn very fast," he said, rubbing his hands over his wet clothes to warm himself.
    "You are here," Tagore said, "so it was fast enough."
    His robe was dry. He extended another to Justin.
    "Where'd you get these?"
    "They have been waiting for us for many years," Tagore said. He took him into a cave set at the base of the mountain and showed him the deep hole in the wall where the robes had been buried inside a silver casket, along with woolen cloaks and strips of cloth. "Ten years, exactly. That is how long it has taken us to find you."
    "What if I'm not the one you're looking for?"
    Tagore gathered sticks. "You are," he said.
    Justin stripped down quickly and put on the robe.
    "This, too," Tagore said, handing him a belt made of small bones.
    "What are these things?" the boy asked, fingering the strange white rosary.
    "The spine of a snake," Tagore said.
    "It's not like yours."
    "The snake is for you alone." Tagore built a