Path of Possession

by Harmon Cooper

  “I believe there’s enough room out there for us to play with your time ability in the morning, if you would like to do so,” Lhandon said, changing subjects. “I know this isn’t an ideal location, but we would have more privacy up here than the city below.”

  “Sure, let’s do that.”

  “And what happens tomorrow, once we return to Zol?” Saruul asked.

  “She’s got a point, Nick,” Roger cackled. “What happens next?”

  “I don’t believe we have worn out our welcome at the brewery, but we do need to make a decision as to what we should do next,” Lhandon said, answering for me. “We have found the reincarnation of the Exonerated One, beautiful young Tsetsen, and I would like to pay her mother and father a visit once again, to make sure that a line of communication remains open. From there, we can either go back to Lhasa, or…”

  “No, we have to handle things here in the Island Kingdom,” I said, everyone knowing exactly what I meant. “It hasn’t been on my mind as much as it should, I’ll admit that. It’s just hard to process the fact that I’m going to have to go to war with a friend. And then what? I don’t want to be Emperor of this place if I do happen to beat him.”

  “I suppose that would be another use of the amulet,” Lhandon said. “Let me clarify: if the reverse happens and you die, you can bring yourself back and sneak away with us.”

  “Nick isn’t going to lose,” Roger said. “Not with us.”

  The lioness sighed. “You are very confident for a bird your size.”

  “I might be the size of a dead troll’s bloated fist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart of gold, nor does it mean I wouldn’t take on a person twenty times my size. I’m the one that actually saw Hugo, remember? Don’t think for a minute that I couldn’t skewer one of his eyes, rendering him half-blind. And from that point? The sky is the limit, if you get my drift.”

  “Such confidence,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Is he boasting about something?” Lhandon asked.

  Saruul and I both laughed, our voices echoing in the cave. “You could call it that,” I finally told the monk.

  “Laugh it up,” Roger said, turning away from us, a grumpy look on his face. “Don’t be surprised when I turn out to be the bird that saves the day.”

  All four of us eventually drifted off to sleep, but not before Lhandon led Saruul and me through a meditation that involved recognizing various human conditions, acknowledging them, recalling a time in which we had felt that human condition, and then letting it filter away.

  It left me feeling calm and collected, the sound of the howling wind outside lulling me into a deep slumber.

  I was up before the others the next morning, and after slipping into my boots and equipping my blade, I stepped outside, looking at the statue yet again. It was a clear day, the mountain visible in the distance, clumps of cotton white clouds wrapped around a few of their peaks.

  As I looked at the statue I wondered what it represented, and how it had been erected so far away from civilization. I reached my hand out and touched it, noticing that it was cold and covered in a thin layer of snow.

  Lhandon joined me, the monk yawning as he came out of the cave.

  “Did the description say anything about the statue?” I asked, tapping my finger against the woman’s stomach. “Sorry, good morning.”

  “Good morning to you as well. And to answer your question, no, but I have seen similar drawings and statues before,” he said after a long yawn. “There was a time in which dakinis were represented with wings, and this statue likely hails from that period. It was hundreds of years ago, probably just after the second Immortals came and died.”

  “That’s right, there was more than one set.”

  “The ones that you are so familiar with—Thupten the Corrupted; Misake the Whisperer; Ganbold the Strong; Padme Lung the Virtuous; and Kenzo the Written—were the first set to appear in our world, correct.”

  “I wouldn’t say that I am familiar with them, but their names do keep popping up,” I told him.

  “They should, and better understanding the paths that they have given to our world is something that I do hope to do once I’m settled again. I am most interested in the Path of Cultivation, as I feel that there are things I could learn from it that would help me better codify the Path of the Divine. That said, the Path of Sudden Enlightenment has always been a secret pleasure of mine, although practically no information exists about it, just secondhand sources. But I’m up for the challenge.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what happens when you cast Ra-Mu while your power is activated, how it reverses time, and how we can somehow give you control when it comes to setting the marker.”

  “That’s a good way to put it, setting the marker.”

  Lhandon nodded. “I didn’t want it to get confusing, and what I mean by the term is setting the time which you return to. So let’s just call it that.”

  “Will do,” I told him. “Setting the marker.”

  “My thoughts are that it is a mental visualization thing for you, similar to how you have learned to control your unique time ability. It may have something to do with your mind, or the world in which you come from, but it seems that being able to visualize some type of button or switch is how you, Nick Barnette, interpret your powers.”

  “Go on...” I told him.

  “I want you to first meditate on what the Ra-Mu button could look like, and where it would be located. My thoughts are this: you would mentally press this button, then activate your time ability, then cast the rune, and then you would return to the marker you have set. Since the others are sleeping, we can play around with this for a while. You aren’t cold or anything, are you?” he asked, looking around.

  There was a fresh layer of snow on the ground, but the wind had subsided, and it wasn’t as cold as it had been the previous evening. The sun was coming up too, which led me to believe that the snow would melt soon.

  “I’m fine,” I told him.

  “Then sit with me. I want you to focus on visualizing a button that would set the marker for the rune.”

  After dusting away the snow, we sat before one another, Lhandon instructing me on the style of breathing I should utilize, counting backward on the exhales until I got into a rhythm. The switch that activated my time ability appeared before me, and I started to imagine a button beneath it.

  I breathed life into this button, focusing on it, again and again, watching as it changed shapes and sizes, going from almost a cartoon style to something that bordered on cyberpunk. Eventually, a circular button solidified, one that had a deep shade of green to it.

  Rather than tell Lhandon what I had envisioned, and that it had solidified in my mind’s eye, I simply focus on strengthening the image, pouring more mental energy into the green button.

  Finally, I blinked my eyes open to see Lhandon smiling at me. “Well?”

  “I believe I have it,” I said. “Or at least, I think I do.”

  “Wonderful. I’m going to perform three different gestures. I will perform them first, so you are aware of what they are. Then, I will perform them again and I want you to ‘press’ the button that you have created while I perform one of the gestures, but don’t tell me which one you pressed it on. Then you will activate your time ability, and trace the rune. Does that make sense? Worst case scenario, um, you revert back to the last time you pressed the button which I believe was in the courtyard of the monastery.”

  “Let’s hope not. If all this has been done correctly, I will return to the precise moment you are performing the gesture that I’ve selected. Then we will know that the power is working.”

  “Precisely. Are you ready?”

  I nodded.

  The first thing Lhandon did was jog around the statue. Then, he bent over and formed a snowball, which he chucked over the ledge. Finally, he cast the rune that illuminated his hand.


  “Are you ready?”

  “Sure,” I said, envisioning the dark green button.

  Lhandon jogged around the statue. As he bent forward to start making a snowball, I pressed the green button I had imagined. He finished making his snowball and tossed it over the edge. He finally cast the rune that made his hand glow with light.

  I mentally triggered my time ability. As soon as I did, I traced Ra-Mu.

  Lhandon bent forward and started making a snowball, which he threw over the edge before illuminating his hand.

  I triggered my time ability again by mentally flicking the switch and again traced Ra-Mu.

  Suddenly, Lhandon was bent over again, gathering up snow for a snowball.

  “You can stop,” I told him. “It’s working.”

  “It did?”

  “I’ve tested it twice now,” I said, trying to contain my excitement.

  “Wonderful!” He rubbed his hands together again, beaming a smile at me. “Let’s try a few more times. Does that work for you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “And you aren’t feeling a headache coming on or anything, are you?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet, I’m not. Time keeps resetting to the moments before I triggered my power, so it is like starting fresh every time I use it.”

  “Great, I can’t wait to see what becomes of this. Let’s do it again.”

  Chapter Twenty-One: Foolhardy Plan

  I wasn’t as confident with Ra-Mu and my power as I would have liked to have been, but after practicing it with Lhandon for a while, I was starting to grow more accustomed to activating the rune. Saruul came out of the cave at some point, snacking on some dried fruit, the lioness quiet as she watched us.

  I couldn’t help but give her a goofy grin every now and then, recalling how much we had already been through, from the explosive start of our relationship to her mother’s training and the way she had taken part in my rescue, Saruul finally deciding to join us on this incredible journey.

  We practiced, she watched, it was nice.

  Even Roger’s teasing and general loquaciousness didn’t interrupt my thoughts as we made our way back down the mountain, the Deathstone Amulet around my neck.

  It wasn’t clear how I would use the relic yet, but I had a feeling it would involve going after the demons that continued to attack us, more specifically the robed man with a long mustache who first assaulted me back in the jungle of Lhasa.

  That, or the Deathstone Amulet would bring me back from the dead.

  As we walked, Lhandon hummed a mantra that Roger had learned in bird school.

  Saruul didn’t know the mantra, so she simply walked at my side, holding hands with me at times, going ahead every so often to check out the path ahead.

  Eventually, we came to the rope bridge guarded by the fiery skull.

  “And your plan to get across?” Saruul asked. “Because I’m not flying again.”

  “You’ve said that several times now,” Roger chimed in. “We get it. You’ll never be as cool as a bird.”

  “We’re going to have to test it first,” Lhandon said, his brow furrowing, “but I do believe it will work. A battle isn’t always the best way to take down an enemy.”

  “Is the monk getting philosophical about a flaming skull?” Roger asked as he landed on my shoulder.

  I ignored him as Lhandon explained what he thought we should do.

  It wasn’t a bad idea, and if it didn’t work, he claimed to have another plan. Plus there was always flying across, although I was with Lhandon and Saruul and their desire to try to figure something else out.

  Lhandon finished his instructions and I nodded.

  “Be careful,” I heard Saruul whisper.

  As I had done before, I placed one hand on the rope railing, the other now on my Cooling Fan of Broken Whispers.

  I looked to the other side of the bridge, and after taking a few steps toward it, the enormous skull with fiery wings appeared.

  “Okay, big guy,” I said, crouching a little as I brought my fan to the ready.

  The skull tilted its head forward and started to charge.

  As it moved toward me, I began stroking my fan in the air.

  The wind I’d created slapped into the skull, doing little to disrupt its trajectory.

  But I was only swinging the fan at half power.

  Once I increased the force behind my swing, the skull started to twist backward.

  The only problem was that my actions were also shaking the bridge, and if I kept my fanning speed up, the bridge would likely flip over, sending me tumbling to a rocky death below. I could already feel the movement in my stomach, the butterflies starting to rise.

  I quickly ran back to Lhandon and Saruul, safely on the mountain pass again.

  “It works,” I said, catching my breath.

  “You had that skull flying away. And fuck that skull!” Roger cackled from Saruul’s shoulder.

  “But the bridge…” Saruul started to say.

  “That was just a test run,” Lhandon reminded us. “Remember how it chased you to the end of the bridge last time?”

  “I remember.”

  “What we’ll do now is have someone who’s fast. Saruul—I’m sorry, I’m not fast— get the skull to chase you back here,” Lhandon explained as he looked from her to me. “You will then cast the Rune of Distortion and blow the skull off course. Saruul will race across the bridge as a lion, and both of us will run across after casting Ra-Mu, which will increase our speed. Sound doable?”

  “That is insane,” Roger said, “but I like the monk’s thinking style.”

  Saruul morphed into a lion. She stepped onto the first rung of the bridge, the skull taking notice.

  Her tail slightly tucked between her legs, the lioness started walking toward the skull, her shoulders slinking with each step.

  It wasn’t long before the skull gave chase, Saruul turning quickly and jogging back toward us.

  I cast the Rune of Distortion, Goh-Mo, and as I did I shut my eyes, noticing that Lhandon also had his hand over his eyes.

  The rune cast, I immediately opened my eyes to find Saruul charging at me, the skull starting to veer off to the right.

  Saruul tackled me, and as she did I accidentally tossed the Cooling Fan of Broken Whispers into the air.

  The lioness started mauling me, my distortion rune clearly affecting her mind.

  I didn’t have time to curse myself for not warning her, and as we struggled, I caught Roger handing my fan off to Lhandon, who took over, the monk beating the fan rapidly with his free hand tucked behind his back, so rapidly in fact it looked like he wasn’t even moving.

  “Saruul!” I shouted, grabbing the lioness, trying to stop her from chomping at my face.

  “Cast Ra-Mu, Nick!” Lhandon shouted.

  I glanced to see that the skull was now completely away from the bridge, heading in the entirely opposite direction.

  I managed to throw Saruul to the side, the lioness up in an instant, charging me with a scared look in her eyes and a bloodied maw.

  Roger slammed into her, the bird knocking himself out, but hitting her hard enough to distract her momentarily.

  Saruul turned her attention to Roger.

  I scrambled on top of the bird, tucking him into the front of my robes. Saruul piled onto my back, her claws tearing down my flesh as I elbowed her in the face.

  And rather than cast the rune, I turned to the bridge, running as fast as I could, Roger clutched to my chest.

  I got a couple of rungs onto the bridge and turned, seeing that Saruul hadn’t started chasing me yet. She was staring at a rock now, confused, her ears straightening and flattening.

  “Hurry, Nick!” Lhandon called, the monk already on the other side of the bridge, still using the fan, the skull floating further and further away from us.

  “What happened?” Roger asked, starting to come awake.

  I drew my Flaming Thunderbolt, waving it in circles above my head
. That caught Saruul’s attention.

  Growling, ornery as ever, the lioness gave chase.

  I ran as fast as I could, managing to make it to the other side just as she threw her body forward, bringing me down, my Flaming Thunderbolt cracking against the ground and…

  No.

  My weapon flipped over the side of the ledge just as Saruul began to let up.

  A look of realization came over her leonine face as she morphed into a human, as she noticed that her mouth and her hands were covered in blood. It only took a second for her to glance at my body and see all the bite and scratch marks to realize what she had done.

  “Nick?” she asked, panic in her voice as she turned me over, as Roger pushed out of my robes.

  “Just lay down,” I told her, realizing that the distortion rune may still be active. “I can... heal myself.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Your sword…” Lhandon said as he came to both of us. He lowered the fan, no longer interested in the skull, which didn’t seem to leave the bridge anyway.

  “My head…” Roger hopped onto the ground, massaging the back of his skull with his wing. “It’s like I flew into a wall.”

  “I need to heal,” I told them as I traced Healing Hand, immediately feeling the bite marks stitch themselves up. My robes were still bloodied and tattered, and as I finished up Lhandon started ruffling through his backpack, looking for a fresh set of robes.

  I turned my attention to Saruul, who hung her head in shame.

  “It was my rune,” I told her, the lioness now perched on her haunches. “I should have told you…”

  “I could have killed you.” She started to come into my arms and then winced, her hand coming to her side. Saruul looked down, noticing a deep puncture wound just below the rib cage. “Did you stab me?”

  “It was Roger,” I said. “He slammed into you.”

  “I did?” Roger asked, a frightened look coming across his face. “Shit, I did! No wonder my beak feels like it’s going to pop off.”

  “Let me heal you,” I told her, bringing my hand her side. Her throat quivered as she watched me heal her up, her eyes watering.