Path of Possession

by Harmon Cooper

“It should be,” the petite woman told us. “This particular chung is brewed in a different way than what we normally serve. We considered it our top-shelf stuff,” she said with a flirty smile as she stepped away. “Amraa must really like you guys.”

  “Top shelf it is,” Roger announced, the bird pressing himself back off the table. He lifted a wing into the air. “To treasure! To conquests! To Amraa! And to the white birds of Dornod…”

  The bird face planted straight into the saucer. He rolled onto his side, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

  “Never again,” Saruul told me with a wry smile.

  “Agreed.”

  The rest of the night was uneventful, and the chung put Saruul, Roger, and me to sleep almost immediately. No dreams, but I did wake up once to check on my blade, and go outside to use the restroom.

  That was another thing I was already having to get used to in the cottage behind the brewery. There was a single outhouse, and it was guarded by a horde of flies. It wasn’t a pretty place, and I was glad to get back to bed.

  We had agreed for Lhandon to first go to breakfast with Sarnai, which gave me an extra hour to sleep, something I was thankful for when I briefly heard him getting up.

  Nothing like an extra hour of sleep.

  After they had eaten, the two returned to fetch me.

  “We’re going over there now,” Lhandon informed me; Saruul waved for him to go away so she could sleep a bit longer. Roger briefly woke up, looked over to Lhandon with bloodshot eyes, glared, and turned to the other side.

  “Just give me a second.” I sat up and ran my hand through my hair.

  The alcohol was making me feel groggy, and I almost traced my Healing Hand power to cure myself of my hangover. But I knew that this would be a waste of the rune, especially considering what we would possibly face later that day, so I merely washed my face, drank a glass of water, ate an apple, and then joined Lhandon and Sarnai outside.

  Sarnai had red skin, similar to some of the other townspeople. Her hair was braided and she was fit from her time spent behind the bar.

  She was quiet too, not saying a word as we made our way to the opposite side of the city of Zol. We passed a man crouched on the ground before a carpet of painted seashells, a husband-and-wife team selling their fresh catches, a market full of odds and ends, a blacksmith, even a couple city guards, which made me glad that Lhandon had used his rune to disguise my features.

  We eventually came to a house on the end of a small lane, a quaint two-room home made from the same stone as the rest of the buildings in the city, two trees in front of the home covered in purple leaves and dark pink flowers.

  “We have it from here,” Lhandon told Sarnai, who merely nodded, turning back to the brewery.

  “She’s quiet,” I said after she was gone.

  “She was more talkative over breakfast, but not much. She mostly just asked me questions about our journey and the Path of the Divine. I suppose, as a bartender, she spends most of her time listening.” Lhandon chuckled. “She seems to be the exact opposite of her daughter.”

  “Did she say anything about the reincarnation?”

  “Not much, aside from hearing about a couple who’d had a child that doesn’t cry. This is their home, if that wasn’t clear.”

  “It’s clear,” I said as I looked back at the place and its pretty purple trees. “So, how does this work anyway?”

  Lhandon rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to tell them what I’m here to do, and then we’ll go from there.”

  “You seem rather confident about this,” I said.

  “No, just calm. I had a good meditation session this morning, and I’m feeling very positive about today’s affairs.”

  “You were able to meditate with Roger snoring?”

  Lhandon smiled. “I believe that was the lioness…”

  “Don’t tell her that,” I said with a chuckle as I followed the monk up a stone pathway to a door that appeared to have been painted purple to match the foliage of the trees.

  Lhandon knocked; it was only a few moments later when a woman came to the door.

  She looked tired, her feathered hair down, her eyes a bit puffy. “Yes?” she asked, the corners of her lips twitching as she tried to smile.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Lhandon began, “but it has come to our attention that you have given birth to a boy who doesn’t cry.”

  “Come again?”

  “Your infant son, he doesn’t cry.”

  “I don’t have a son, I have a girl. And wait…” She peered at us curiously. “Who are you again?”

  “A girl?” Lhandon asked. “But I was told…” He shook his head. “My name is Lhandon, the Exalted One. This is Nick from Massachusetts.”

  “Um, yes,” I said, bowing my head slightly. “From Massachusetts. But you can just call me Nick.”

  The woman groaned. “Well, we have already tithed for the month, and until my husband is able to get another job on one of the merchant ships…”

  “We aren’t here for money,” Lhandon assured her. “In fact, we are actually here to give you some money, well, potentially. I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  I tried not to glance over at Lhandon, but I couldn’t help but feel like we were a pair of crappy door-to-door salesmen.

  “What is this about?” the woman asked, exasperation in her voice.

  We heard a man call out inside the home.

  “I’ll be there in just a minute,” she called back to her husband.

  Lhandon nodded politely. “We are from Lhasa, and we have come all this way because the Exonerated One, who was the founder of a monastery near the city of Nagchu, died. I was a monk at his monastery for thirty years, and one of the potential places that he had chosen to be reborn was here in the Island Kingdom of Jonang. So this is why we are here. And hearing about your, um, daughter, and the way she has reacted to being born, has led me to believe that she may be his reincarnation.”

  “Tsetsen?” she asked.

  “Is that her name?”

  “It is, but I don’t…” the woman shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting any of this.”

  “Would you mind if we met your daughter?” Lhandon asked. “I have a simple test to perform, and if that test confirms anything for me, there will be a runic ceremony test. I don’t want to take too much of your time, and regardless, I can pay you for this visit. And of course, you can be there the entire time.”

  “I…”

  “It’s okay, we aren’t here to do anything drastic,” Lhandon assured her. “Well, I suppose learning that your daughter is a reincarnated master is a bit drastic, if that is indeed the case. Did I mention we could pay you for your time?”

  “Sure, and yes, you did,” she finally said. “But let me talk to my husband as well.”

  “By all means,” Lhandon told her.

  The woman shut the door on us, and for a moment I didn’t think she would open it again.

  “Well?” I asked the monk, whose hands were now clasped behind his back.

  “Par for the course,” he assured me. “And I expected the parents to be a little shocked, more so if this young girl turns out to be the Exonerated One.”

  “We aren’t bringing a child with us, are we? Because that would be…”

  “Absurd. I believe I discussed this with you before, but the child would stay here until they were old enough to start learning,” Lhandon said quietly. “Unless they were willing to move to whatever monastery I’m able to cobble together in Lhasa, the child may have to be trained here. But, it sounds like the husband is finding it hard to secure employment, so moving isn’t out of the question.”

  “Looks like you’ll be starting a nunnery after all,” I said with a grin.

  Lhandon nodded. “If she is indeed the reincarnation, then yes, that would be the case. Maybe it is better this way. The Exonerated One, as you may recall, had some less than desirable habits.”

  “You mean like the time he stuck
me in an underground meditation chamber without asking my opinion of the matter?”

  “Yes, among other things,” Lhandon said solemnly.

  The door opened and the woman returned, her husband at her side.

  He too had red skin, the man sinewy and thin, a tattoo running down the side of his temple.

  “Money first,” he said with a grunt.

  “As promised,” Lhandon told the man as he reached into the front of his robes, bringing out a few of the promissory notes that Sukhbat had given him. “I suppose this will be enough?”

  “Why…” The man tried to contain his excitement. His wife elbowed him; he winced, bowing his head. “Yes, ahem, that is a fair amount.”

  “Please, come in,” the woman said as she opened the door just a little bit wider, allowing us to step inside.

  The house was untidy but the floor was clean. While everything seemed to be in disarray, I could tell that there was some order to it, that someone, likely the woman, was in control. They led us to the bedroom, where we found the young girl asleep, swaddled in blankets.

  Her mother picked her up, and rather than cry, the child merely blinked her eyes open, making an agitated face aimed in the direction of her father.

  “And she has never cried?” I asked.

  “Not a peep. She makes noises,” the woman explained, “but no crying whatsoever.” The mother turned her young daughter in the direction of Lhandon. “Tsetsen, this is the Exalted One.”

  The baby looked Lhandon over as if she were scrutinizing, a frown taking shape across her face.

  “Nice to meet you, Tsetsen,” Lhandon said, bowing his head at the child. “I suppose we should get started. Do you mind unwrapping her blanket?”

  “Sure,” the mother said as she handed the baby to her husband.

  The woman sat on the ground, and her husband lowering the baby back into her arms. From there she unwrapped the blankets covering the baby’s body and sat the child up, using her own legs for support.

  “I’m going to arrange some black pearls in front of you, Tsetsen,” Lhandon explained slowly, even though the child couldn’t understand him. “If you see the one that is yours, I want you to indicate to me that it belongs to you. You may interpret this request in any way that you would like.”

  Lhandon began placing black pearls on the ground. He lined them all up, the infant girl watching him skeptically as he did so.

  “Now, which one is yours?”

  She started to glare at Lhandon.

  “Please, Tsetsen, are any of these your pearls?”

  The child’s face grew red and she shook her head.

  “Did you see that, Nick?” Lhandon asked, without looking away from the girl.

  “I think I did,” I said. “Yes, sure. She shook her head.”

  “She’s really clever,” her father said. “We’ve already discovered that. Smarter than any baby that anyone around here has ever seen before, and definitely smarter than my brother’s son, who’s a little asshole.”

  “Hush,” his wife said.

  “It’s true! He bit my hand.”

  “You wouldn’t stop patting him on the head!”

  Lhandon ignored the parents as he picked up the pearls and placed them inside their leather satchel. He shook the satchel, Tsetsen watching as he did so. He reached his hand into the satchel and brought one of the pearls out, showing it to the girl.

  “Would you like to play with it?” he asked as he brought it a little closer to her.

  Tsetsen shook her head again, the young child taking in short breaths, clearly annoyed with the whole charade.

  “Very well. Would you mind if I cast a rune?” Lhandon asked, looking up at the father and the mother.

  “I don’t know…” the mother started to say.

  “I assure you it won’t hurt her, but…” Lhandon bobbed his head left and right as he considered how he was going to explain this. “But it may disturb you.”

  The father took a step back, leaned on his heel, and then pressed forward a bit. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to cast a rune that will make your daughter float for a moment. The reason she will be floating is that her soul will be momentarily stripped from her body. It will look like it is painful, but it is not, and she will fall asleep after her soul has been returned to her body. It will bring no harm to your daughter.”

  “You’re going to make her float?” the woman asked.

  “It’s the final test I’m able to confirm with my limited supplies,” Lhandon admitted. “And I’m well aware that using this rune is a bit unorthodox, but it is the only option available. And to be clear, her soul may actually speak, although I have yet to see that happen. So please be prepared for that possibility as well.”

  “You’ve seen this before?” I asked.

  “Aren’t you his assistant?” the man asked, looking at me curiously.

  “Heavens, no,” Lhandon said with a chuckle. “He is a friend of mine. He has taken to wearing robes, and I believe he is a practitioner of the Path of the Divine, but he hasn’t cleared the Broken Sword stage.”

  “That’s right,” I told him, smiling over at the couple.

  “Should I just…” the woman looked up to the bed. “Is that okay?”

  “That is a perfect place to place her,” Lhandon said.

  The woman handed the baby to her husband, who placed Tsetsen on the bed.

  “Please, do not panic,” Lhandon said as he ran his finger through the air.

  He moved quickly, tracing more runes than I had ever seen him cast before, practically a paragraph of runes. Once he finished, a slither of smoke emitted from his fingertip.

  “Are you sure about this?” the girl’s mother whispered.

  “Trust me,” Lhandon told her.

  The smoke started to turn to glitter, forming a cloud over the child’s body. It faded to white and spiraled down into the center of the young girl’s body, which was pulled upward, as if she had been suspended on a hook.

  Her mother gasped as Tsetsen opened her mouth, still not making a noise as a milky white and purple substance started to pour out of her pupils.

  It rose over her body, forming into something that looked like a swelling brain.

  “Exonerated One,” Lhandon said, dropping to his knee.

  “Wh-hhat have you done!?”

  Lhandon lifted his hand, silencing Tsetsen’s mother.

  “Rghghghhaahwwwwwwaaaaa….”

  The sound emitting from the child’s mouth was unlike any noise I’d heard before. It was a guttural utterance, almost completely generated from the baby’s throat, in need of an exorcism.

  Suddenly, it shifted tones.

  “Lhandon, what have you done to my monastery?” a whispery voice asked.

  “She speaks!?” the mother gasped again. Her husband caught her just in time as she fainted.

  “Wrap this up,” the husband said, a nervous look coming over his face. “I don’t want anything happening to her…”

  “She will be fine,” I said for Lhandon, who was too busy focusing on the spirit to pay attention to the husband any longer.

  “Exonerated One,” Lhandon said, bowing his head. “Your monastery has been destroyed, but by the time you are of age, I will have it rebuilt. You have reincarnated in the body of a girl.”

  “A girl?” the voice asked, the agitation behind it starting to fade away.

  “Yes, a girl named Tsetsen.”

  “A young girl, eh? I suppose I am fine with that,” the voice finally said, softer this time. “It is time that this world recognizes a powerful nun, and through this vessel, I will become that nun, one that can inspire women and girls across the kingdoms.”

  “Yes, Exonerated One.”

  “I expect you to look after my mother and father until I’m of age to travel to Lhasa. I am assuming we are in the Island Kingdom, correct?”

  “We are,” Lhandon said.

  I felt a fluttering sensation in my stomach,
and as I looked down, I noticed that a bright energy was starting to spiral out of me as well.

  “Lhandon, something’s happening to me…”

  “I have to send you back, Exonerated One,” Lhandon said hurriedly. “Before I do, you have my word that I will get the monastery rebuilt, and I will also build a monastery for myself in Bamda.”

  “Absolutely not,” the spirit chided him.

  “If that is your wish…” Lhandon started to say.

  “You will not build a monastery for yourself, you will build a temple, Exalted One,” the spirit said. “I expect nothing less.”

  “Lhandon…” I said, starting to feel lightheaded.

  Lhandon stood and quickly traced a series of runes.

  The purple substance was sucked back into the girl through her eye sockets. She lowered to the bed, the smoke Lhandon used to lift her returning to his fingertip.

  “Are you all right, Nick?” he asked me.

  “Why did it do that?” I asked as I touched my stomach, noticing that the fluttering sensation was gone.

  “That particular rune is a tricky one,” Lhandon said quickly. “And if one isn’t careful, it will start pulling out the souls of everyone in the room. It’s why I only use it on rare occasions.”

  He straightened his hand over his robes and turned to the father and mother, the woman just starting to flutter her eyes open.

  “What happened?” she asked her husband.

  “Our…” the man gulped. “Tsetsen is a reincarnation.”

  “She is indeed,” Lhandon told them. “And I will go over all the details now. Unless you would like me to go over them later…”

  The two parents exchanged glances. “I suppose now is fine,” the man told him.

  “I won’t waste your time, but I will tell you that at the age of ten, she will have to come to the monastery. I can also tell you that the Exonerated One does have wealth in Lhasa, a portion of which will go to you as his, I mean her, parents. Ultimately, it is up to you to make the decision, but when she comes of age, she will likely rebel if you haven’t allowed her to go down the path that she has already chosen for herself.”

  “The spirit said that he wanted her to become a famous nun, to inspire other girls,” the man told his wife.