Path of Possession

by Harmon Cooper

“The Exalted One?”

  “That’s him, the Exalted One. Nice guy,” the soldier in bamboo covered armor said. He offered us a slight bow. “The temple isn’t too far from the gates here. Take your first left once you get in the city and continue up that path until the road forks, keep to the left, you can’t miss it. Really. It’s all gold and white.”

  “Great,” Roger said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “And you have a bird,” the soldier said, turning his attention to Roger. “I really need to get to the mainland. I’ve always wanted a bird as a pet!”

  We continued onward, Roger mumbling under his breath about how he wasn’t a pet.

  Ganbold definitely had the feel of a capital city, the roads twice the size of the ones in Anand. The buildings were white here rather than the color of sandstone, and aside from an occasional dwelling, most had ceramic tile roofs.

  Very few vine-covered trellises here as well.

  Instead, the people of Ganbold preferred dense flowering bushes managed by topiarists, a few of them at work with their shears as we continued toward the temple.

  There was silence to the place that didn’t sit well with me, and as we progressed toward the temple, I noticed that people rarely made eye contact with us. Those that did either looked away or bowed, everyone trying to keep to themselves.

  “Friendly place,” Roger said as I noticed something glistening at the end of a lane of two-story homes.

  “What did you expect, a red carpet?”

  He cackled. “Red? No, but I did expect a velvet one, perhaps a yellow carpet.”

  “Birds don’t need carpets,” Saruul reminded him as the temple took shape in the haze of the city.

  It was completely gold, with the top floors covered in glazed glass that made it hard to focus on due to where the sun currently sat. There were four pagodas acting as the posts, and perfectly manicured hedges and small stepping stones leading up to several entrances.

  A portly monk in saffron robes stood out front, pacing back and forth, his hands behind his back.

  “Lhandon?” I whispered, and as if he heard me the monk turned to see us, joy rocketing across his face.

  Chapter Ten: The Temple of Ocean Sky

  Barely able to contain his excitement, Lhandon led us up one of the step paths to a pocket door that doubled as a wall. It seemed sturdy enough to stop a sudden wind, yet it looked like the door effortlessly slid open.

  “Praise the gods!” Lhandon said as we came into a room in the Temple of Ocean Sky that offered a stunning view of the city, a horizontal line of ocean in the distance.

  “The Path of Possession is treating you well,” Roger said, landing on the windowsill.

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s wondering if you’ve converted,” I told him as Lhandon quickly placed some cushions on the ground for us to sit on.

  “Converted? Ha!” Lhandon laughed long and hard at this. “I’d never do such a thing, Roger. You should know that by now!”

  Saruul took her seat, smiling at Lhandon as he made his way to the ground as well. “Roger has been pushing everyone’s buttons as of late.”

  “What? Ah, come on, lioness, don’t tell him that. I can’t defend myself!”

  “I’m sure he has been lovely. And to further comment on your statement—please, Nick, sit, relax—I’ve been dedicating myself to keeping my prostrations up while I’ve been here, and I have officially made it past the Broken Sword stage, although I’d like Jigme to be the one who officially recognizes this once we go back to Dornod.”

  Just the mention of Saruul’s hometown caused her to sigh.

  “Do you miss home?” Lhandon asked, turning his focus to her.

  “I do.”

  “I can understand that. Hopefully, we won’t be in the Island Kingdom much longer?”

  “Are you telling me we’re going back to Lhasa after this?” Roger asked after dropping to the floor.

  “That was the plan…”

  “Come on, Nick, our adventure has just begun! I thought we’d make it to Paro at the rate we’re going.”

  “We’ll see. Please, Lhandon, continue.”

  The monk lowered his head, a humble smile on his face. “I was just saying that I’ve been keeping up my meditation and prostrations, continuing to drill down on the restructured Path of the Divine. I have more notes about small adjustments, nothing that should concern you all, but notes none the less. It will take me a while to clear the ten thousand prostrations for the Wheel with a Rusty Axle stage, and I’d like to drill down on some of the information studied for this section, but progress is being made. Also, I was lonely.”

  “The truth comes out!” Roger said with a cackle.

  “We would have come sooner, but it took us some time to get the news that you were indeed in Ganbold, and then there was the jungle…”

  “You didn’t come by boat?” he asked me, his eyebrows rising with concern.

  Saruul shook her head. “After what happened out at sea? I’m still not ready to get on a boat.”

  Lhandon fixed his ponytail and continued speaking, “I can understand that. I was just lucky to be able to join Tsegi in one of her rescue boats. That sea dragon! Never have I seen such a terrible thing! I knew in my heart of hearts that you three would survive, but the last couple days before I got word from the monastery in Anand were excruciating indeed. I kept my faith through meditation, prostrations, and perusing the library here,” he said. “But it was quite challenging.”

  “We were worried as hell about you, as well,” I told him.

  Silence stretched between us until Lhandon finally spoke: “It is painful to not know the outcome of the life of someone you hold dear.”

  “Who runs this place anyway?” I asked, hoping to change the tone of our conversation.

  While Lhandon’s room was relatively simple, just a bed and a table covered in papers and books, the rest of the monastery and the hallway outside had been absolutely decadent thus far, the ceilings done up in silver and gold frescos with dozens of portraits and elaborate hand-painted religious scenes on the walls. Even the wood flooring looked to be a step up from any wood floor I’d ever seen in Lhasa, perfectly crafted and stained.

  “That would be Sukhbat the Precious Heart Gem. He is an older monk with…” Lhandon swallowed hard. “…a lot of possessions and worldly tendencies that I do not agree with. But he has been quite hospitable, so I can’t knock him there. How has your practice been?”

  Roger snorted.

  “We’ve been a little engaged since arriving on the island,” I told Lhandon, launching into the story of how we had come across Nyima the sand spirit and eventually acquired the Cooling Fan of Broken Whispers.

  “You have a fan?” he asked, his curiosity piqued.

  I took the fan from the front of my robes and gave it to Lhandon. He opened the fan for a moment and admired it, running his finger along the bird stitchings.

  “Careful with that thing,” I started to say. “We cleared out a hallway using it.”

  Lhandon snapped the hand fan shut. “Cleared out a hallway?”

  “We were staying at a rest stop on the way here when there was a disturbance in the hallway,” Saruul said. “Nick intervened, preventing one of Hugo’s soldiers from terrorizing one of the women that worked there. More soldiers came. Nick used the fan to clear them out.”

  “How exactly?”

  “Just tell him to open it and wave it at his own face,” Roger said. “It’ll blow his ponytail right off!”

  “It creates an enormous gust of wind. I don’t know how powerful it can get, but it was powerful enough in the hallway to knock all the men over. It wasn’t easy to get, that fan. We had to fight a skeleton in a crypt on the outskirts of Anand for Nyima to give it to us.”

  “You fought a skeleton?” Lhandon asked with a shudder.

  “We sure did,” Roger said proudly, puffing out his chest.

  “I think he’s proud,” Lhandon observe
d.

  “He’s a lot of things,” Saruul said under her breath.

  “Not only did we fight the skeleton, but we also freed the skeleton, and he later came back to help us in the courtyard,” I said. “Although, I don’t know how or why he was there.”

  “He did?” Lhandon asked. “How utterly bizarre!”

  “It’s been an insane couple of days,” Roger said as the door opened.

  A young monk slipped into the space with a platter of fruit. He placed the platter before Lhandon, performed a full prostration, and left without saying a word.

  Lhandon went for some grapes. “Like I said, they are very hospitable around here. Please, eat.”

  Saruul and I took from the tray, the lioness going for a juicy fruit that resembled a peach while I went for a string of small bananas. The young monk returned with a pitcher of coconut water, which he poured into bowls and handed to each of us before leaving.

  “There’s so much to talk about,” Lhandon said, “so very much. Okay, let’s start with the soldiers. You are aware that your friend is the emperor now, correct?”

  “I am. Hugo won the emperorship during the Moon Tournament.”

  “Ah, so you are aware then. I came to know of this once I arrived in the Port of Sor with Tsegi. She was very helpful, I must say, and she said it would take her a week or two to get a ship together to get back to Sarpang. She also offered us a free voyage on this vessel, if our stars align. I digress. It has been quite harrowing to hear about what your friend has done to dissidents.”

  “Yes,” I said, recalling the people we’d come across who were pinned to trees. “I’m still trying to process it, to be honest with you.”

  “It’s very sad, but maybe there is hope. Perhaps you’ll be able to connect with him, and convince him to use his power to help those that need help. But that remains to be seen. When do you plan to visit Emperor Hugo?”

  “Tomorrow. I’d like to get the lay of the land first.”

  “Emperor Hugo has used the island’s religion against itself, meaning that all the monasteries and temples have, thus far, avoided any of his crueler forms of punishment. He’s distributed items from the government’s vault to the temples, which, as you know, is how they worship here.”

  “Yep, weird cult shit that is edging way too close to a circle jerk,” Roger said.

  “I’ve seen it,” I told Lhandon, recalling what we’d witnessed in the monastery in Anand, how all of the monks had positioned themselves in a circle around the boy monk as he absorbed power from his various items.

  “It is quite the conundrum,” Lhandon said, a frown coming across his face. “But these are the waters we are faced with navigating. Has Roger made friends? I meant to ask that earlier. There are so many seagulls, and they all seem so wonderful.”

  “Kill me. Nick, take the knife we stole from that dead soldier and kill me with it. Look me in the eyes when you do it. Wait, that’s weird. Make Saruul do it. I’m sure she’d do it.”

  “Nick, give me your knife,” Saruul said with a grin on her face.

  “Why would you need his knife?” Lhandon asked, genuinely confused.

  “Never mind, and Roger hates the seagulls, just to be clear. They gave him a rough time on the beach and one of them tried to shit on him.”

  “Oh my!” Lhandon gasped.

  “Oh my is fucking right,” Roger said. “Look, I’m not an elitist, but I went to a top-tier school and I’ll be damned if some seagull is going to shit at me!”

  “He really doesn’t like the seagulls, does he?” Lhandon asked.

  “Your translation skills have improved…”

  Lhandon laughed. “Perhaps they have. Well then, Roger, I have a challenge for you. While we are here in Jonang, I would like you to befriend a seagull. Male or female, it doesn’t matter to me. It is important for us to look past our differences as we better ourselves on the Path of the Divine.”

  “Befriend a seagull?” Roger shook his head incredulously.

  “Attempt it, yes,” Lhandon said.

  “I don’t know…”

  “I’m sure you will be able to honor my request.” Lhandon cleared his throat. “Now, there are other things we have to discuss, and a rune I’d like to show you. But before we do that, I want to tell you that I’ve narrowed the search down for the reincarnation of the Exonerated One. According to Sukhbat the Precious Heart Gem, there was a boy born in Zol in a very auspicious way. Not only was he born without a single whimper, but he also had an annoyed look on his face.”

  Roger laughed. “That’s… that’s not evidence of anything.”

  “And you think this could be him?” I asked Lhandon.

  “I do. The Exonerated One said a lot of things to me over my time at his monastery, and one of those things was how he didn’t like the sound of crying babies, and that upon rebirth, he wouldn’t disturb his parents by crying. So I believe it could be him. I don’t have the black pearl any longer to test it, but I believe there may be another solution.”

  “You said Zol, right?” I asked, going for the treasure map that Nyima had given me.

  “That’s right.”

  “Because the sand spirit also gave us a map that should lead to a treasure somewhere around Zol.”

  “What kind of treasure?”

  “She didn’t know,” Saruul answered.

  “Perhaps it will be worth a trip then,” Lhandon said with a nod, “especially if this treasure is something that could be useful to our cause. Let’s finish our fruit and then head to the courtyard. I would like to show you the new rune before we prepare for tonight’s dinner ceremony.”

  “Ceremony?” I asked.

  “I may have talked the three of you up quite a bit, and Sukhbat the Precious Heart Gem would like to have a proper welcome for you. And if you would, please indulge him. They have made my stay here very comfortable, allowing me to practice without disruption.”

  Lhandon led me to an inner courtyard that I hadn’t realized was part of the temple.

  The activities that took place here would be shielded from the public, which was exactly what Lhandon wanted as he sat on a cushion, a piece of parchment ready for him and placed on the ground, the quill and ink on a sheet of canvas next to it.

  There were various ritual items in the inner courtyard, from banners with flags on them, as well as a set of palanquins, one of which was practically the size of a small boat.

  It was just the two of us now, both Roger and Saruul staying inside. Saruul had decided to draw a bath in a private room for visiting nuns. Roger had eaten enough fruit that he had grown sleepy, the bird deciding to doze in Lhandon’s room while I learned a new rune.

  “I believe there would be some merit in one day becoming a traveling scholar,” Lhandon began. “There are so many books, scrolls, and treaties that are hard to come across. Traveling has reminded me of this. If only some of the information they have here could reach Lhasa, and the reverse as well. This world could be so much better.”

  “It was in my world, at least, until we got the Internet.”

  “The what?” he asked me, tilting his head a bit to the right.

  “I’m not even going to begin trying to explain that to you, no offense. Just think of it like this: we have a way in my world to constantly be in communication and devour as much content as we’d like. Unfortunately, most people use it as a distraction. And it hasn’t brought us that much closer together, at least not the way that you would think.”

  “That I can understand,” Lhandon said. “I suppose we should begin. The rune I am going to teach you today is called Ra-Mu. You already know the character for ‘Ra,’” he said as he traced the image. I was familiar with it, a sort of curved line with the circle above it, possibly one of the easiest ones to memorize.

  “Now you must learn the rune for Mu, which I hope will be fairly easy for you to remember.” He drew the rune in question on another sheet of parchment, showing it to me. It almost looked like the letter Z had
been mixed with the symbol for the treble clef, business on top, a curl on the bottom.

  “How do you think you would combine these two?” he asked.

  “Easy. Write ‘Mu’ as normal and put ‘Ra’ over it.”

  Lhandon smiled. “You really do have a knack for this; it still surprises me that you can’t actually read the language.”

  “One day,” I told him as he traced Ra-Mu, and turned the image to me.

  “And what does it do?” I asked him.

  “I suppose I should show you what it does and explain after.” Lhandon got to his feet. “Do you mind?”

  “By all means.”

  “I think you will enjoy this,” he said as he traced the rune. Suddenly, Lhandon was standing behind me.

  “Holy…”

  He was then back in his place seated before me.

  “Great, isn’t it?”

  “You can teleport now?”

  “Teleport?” He looked at me funny for a moment.

  He was suddenly standing behind me again, as if he had been there the entire time.

  “The rune allows you to move four times your normal speed for the duration of two minutes,” he told me. “I thought it would be something fascinating for you to play with.”

  “To move four times my speed?”

  “That’s right,” he said with a nod, seated before me again. “It is not slowing down time in the same way that you are already able to do it. I suppose explaining it isn’t going to do it justice, and that you will have to experience it for yourself. Why don’t you give it a try? But before you do, I do have one request.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I would also like to see what happens when you use it after you have triggered your time ability. I have been pondering what this may do.”

  “Sure, and how many times can I use this rune during the day?” I asked him, remembering that I was only able to use my healing power once.

  “Unfortunately, like most good things, there is some limitation. You are only able to use it three times per day, at least according to the text that I copied it from. I have tested it now, trying to use it four times, and as you can imagine, the text was right. Three times per day.”