Path of Possession

by Harmon Cooper

  Breakfast service was announced in the morning, followed by a message reminding us that we were close to the port of Ganbold. The message was piped into our room through a tube, and it wasn’t long before breakfast was delivered to our door, meaning that we never had to leave, nor did Lhandon need to use his rune to disguise my face.

  “So what’s the plan again?” Roger asked as he finally decided to join us. “Because I got places to go, and people to see.”

  Saruul laughed. “No, you don’t.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but I’d still like to know what the plan is.”

  We were seated at a small eating nook near the door, which was a bit cozy, but managed to fit the three of us. There was a full spread of fruit and pastries before us, all the pastries warm, buttery, and crispy.

  “We’ll wait for everyone to leave the ship,” Lhandon said as he finished his pastry, “then I will cast my rune and we’ll be on our way. I still have some promissory notes left, so perhaps we could use those to convince someone to hide us. I’m sure there is a person in the city with a spare room that would be willing to take a risk, especially if they don’t know who we are. Remember, they’re looking for Nick.”

  “And me,” Saruul said.

  “We can disguise your features some with the spare clothing we have,” Lhandon said. Both of us were in our saffron robes now, the clothing we had used to smuggle ourselves onto the ship stuffed into Lhandon’s bag. “Is there a way that you can wrap your tail around your body or something?”

  Saruul shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Yes, that’s something I can do.”

  “And we can cover your ears. They won’t know the difference. If anyone asks, we can say that you are a nun.”

  “A nun with weird bumps on her head,” Roger cackled. “That won’t raise any suspicions.”

  “Once we get situated, we’ll decide how we want to move on Hugo,” I said. “And I know I’ve already said this, but this is my fight. The three of you don’t have to come with me.”

  “We’re coming, Nick,” Saruul said.

  “For once, I’m with the lioness,” Roger chirped.

  Lhandon simply nodded, interpreting Roger’s reply.

  The ship creaked as it came into the dock, trembling a little before finally becoming still. I looked out the window to see that we were facing away from the city, the ocean stretching as far as the eye could see, the sun out but partially hidden by a clump of dark clouds.

  We waited, the sounds of people moving in the cabin above us and in the hallway outside our door echoing into our room. Lhandon meditated while we waited, and once the noises started to dissipate, his eyes came open. “Nick, are you ready?”

  “I am,” I said, envisioning the jowly face of Batmonkh, the man who had helped us secure this cabin.

  “Of all faces…” Saruul said as soon as Lhandon was done rearranging my face.

  “It’s only for thirty minutes,” I reminded her as we stepped out into the hallway, the ship quaking a little as we walked.

  We came out onto the main deck to see one of the men who worked on the ship motioning us toward a walkway. He carried an annoyed look that told us that we’d loitered for too long, the man gathering up rope as we moved past him.

  The first thing we noticed upon coming to the exit of the ship was just how quiet the port was.

  Aside from a few of the passengers from Rinpunga, all in dark blue clothing, the port was practically empty. We came to the lone city guard at the end of the rampway, who simply asked us why we were visiting Ganbold, Lhandon replying that we were here for religious reasons.

  The guard chuckled at that and waved us on.

  Once we were past the guard, and onto the part of the Ganbold dock that was connected to the land, Lhandon stopped in front of a series of weathered shacks, many with bright blue banners in their windows.

  “You sense that, right?” he asked Saruul, who now had a swath of brown fabric draped over her head.

  “Something’s not right.”

  “You can now smell trouble in the air?” Roger asked, who was tucked under my robes, his head popping out.

  “No,” Saruul said, even though her nostrils flared wide, “but I can sense it.”

  “Well, guys, it looks like my usefulness will now…” Roger shook his head. “I didn’t think about the structure of that sentence before I said it. Let me try again: well, guys, I suppose I will humbly prove my usefulness yet again.”

  Roger transitioned to my shoulder, the bird just starting to flap his wings when Lhandon stopped him.

  “They may recognize you,” the monk said. “You were with Nick when he met Hugo. I still have yet to see a bird like you on this island.”

  “The first thing you said is a possibility, the second thing is a fact, and the third thing is also a fact, but I will take the third bit as a compliment.”

  “He’s right,” I told Roger. “If they recognize you, and who knows what they have been told to watch out for, Hugo will know that we are in the city. They may even try to shoot you down.”

  “We saw what happened last time someone tried to shoot me down,” Roger said, even as he landed back on my shoulder. “But maybe you’re right; maybe it’s better this way.”

  We moved into a shadow cast by a building made of brick with a top crafted from corrugated steel, dried palm fronds hanging from its edges.

  There were crates of food in the alley near us and one of them had been forced open. Seagulls circled above in the air, and a few had already landed, taking as much as they could from the open container while no one was there to shoo them away.

  “Bottom feeders, the lot of them,” Roger said with a groan. “Actually, I really can’t blame them for taking advantage of the stupidity of humans. And seriously, do you see that one?”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  Roger motioned toward a particular seagull to the right of the crates, who hopped in front of a metal pole, occasionally tapping its beak against the pole. “My friends, I would like to introduce you to the dumbest seagull on the island.”

  “He just likes shiny things,” Saruul said. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Are you talking about the seagulls?” Lhandon asked. “Because if you are…”

  “Wait a minute,” Roger said, averting Lhandon’s enthusiastic gaze. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Roger, I believe this is your chance to make amends with your biases,” the monk said, his voice suddenly persuasive. “I would like you to go to one of the seagulls and ask them what is going on here in Ganbold, and why the streets are so empty. Perhaps one will do a fly-around for us.”

  “You have got to be kidding me…”

  “No, Roger, it’s a great idea,” Saruul said, looking at him innocuously. “Don’t you want to make some new friends? You always are saying how you don’t have enough friends.”

  “Damn you, lioness, you know that’s not true! Stop filling the monk’s head with lies.” Roger slowly lifted off my shoulder. He landed again. “Nope, I’m not going to do it. They won’t be helpful, and it’ll just be a waste of my time.”

  “Do it…” I told him. “Come on, how hard can it be?”

  “How hard can it be to deal with a bunch of rowdy, inbred seagulls? Gee, I don’t know, Nick, how hard you think it could be?”

  “It is a good karmic practice,” Lhandon assured him. “If they are rude to you, at least we have tried. No harm in that.”

  “Okay,” Roger said, rising into the air again, “but you guys are going to see just how fucked in the head seagulls can be.”

  He swooped up and slowly lowered down onto one of the crates.

  After a long pause, Roger hopped along the ledge until he was closer to one of the fluffy white seabirds.

  Before he could say anything, the nearest seagull turned its rear to Roger, and projectile shat in his direction.

  Roger swiped the seagull’s shit away with his wing, a disgusted look on his face
as he wiped as much of it onto the crate as he could.

  He started squawking at the seagull, a few others circling above now, more sending bird feces in his direction.

  Roger flapped his wings in the air, a couple of them zipping away. He kept trying to talk to them, and when that didn’t work he returned to me.

  “Nick, my knife,” he said, some bird crap still on his wing.

  “What is he asking for?”

  “I do not think that’s a good idea,” I told Roger, ignoring Lhandon’s question.

  “Nick, my knife,” Roger said a humiliated look on his face. “My knife.”

  I obliged, and once I got the knife out of my boot I handed it to Roger, who took its tassel with his talons.

  “You’re giving him a weapon?” Lhandon asked.

  “Let’s just see what he does…”

  “This is a terrible idea,” Saruul said, “but I must admit, I am also interested to see what he does as well. Bird drama is entertaining.”

  “This was not what I was hoping would happen here…”

  “You and me both, monk,” Roger said as he flew off again.

  Rather than land this time, he circled around the air with his dangling knife, threatening the seagulls, all of them scattering, especially after one of them got nicked by Roger’s sharp blade.

  Once they were gone, he dropped his knife and landed on the edge of the crate.

  Roger looked down to see that the same dimwitted seagull pecking at the metal pipe, oblivious to his recent actions.

  Lhandon sighed. “We’re going to have to think of a new idea, aren’t we?”

  “Let’s wait to see how this turns out…” I said as Roger landed next to the lone seagull.

  He started squawking at it; the seagull turned its head to Roger and looked at him curiously with its beady black eyes.

  Roger made a gesture that seemed to say, ‘wait right here,’ and swiftly returned to us.

  “We got ourselves a real dumb seagull,” Roger said hurriedly, “one that likes shiny things. I need something shiny to give him, and then he’ll do a quick patrol for us. Who has something shiny? Not my knife, something else, something smaller.”

  “He needs something shiny,” I translated for Lhandon.

  “Is he making friends with the seagull?”

  “Hardly. This seagull is just an idiot and he thinks that I am a seagull who is, for some reason, about the size of a baby seagull with turquoise and yellow feathers instead of white,” Roger replied, even though Lhandon couldn’t understand him. “Like I said, not bright. Chop, chop, friends, I need to give him something shiny before he forgets what I have asked him to do and flies off.”

  “He really needs something shiny,” I translated for Lhandon.

  “We really don’t have anything that’s shiny, aside from…” Lhandon considered this for a moment. “I suppose it is shiny in its own way. What about one of the black pearls I purchased?”

  “Black pearl, pink pearl, white pearl, fake pearl—it doesn’t matter. If it’s shiny, that bird will like it.” Roger tilted his beak in the direction of the seagull in question, who was back to pecking at the metal pole.

  “Yeah, that will work,” I told Lhandon. The monk reached into his robes and retrieved his satchel of black pearls. He gave one to Roger, who took it in his beak over to the seagull.

  Roger set it on the ground and continued his negotiation with the creature.

  The seagull finally nodded, and before it took off, it went for the black pearl, keeping it in its beak as it flew away.

  “Now, we just sit back and wait,” Roger said once he rejoined us. “The poor sap is going to do a loop around the city and tell us what he sees. If we want anything else, we’re going to have to cough up more pearls. Happy, Lhandon? Does it make you happy now that I’ve had to humiliate myself? Does it bring you joy that I got shat upon multiple times for some karmic reason? Speaking of which, I think I will fly to the ocean and clean off real quick.”

  “What’s he saying?” Lhandon asked.

  “He’s saying that the seagull will return once he has done a loop around the city, and that he is happy to have made amends with the seagull race,” I said, Saruul’s snickering making it impossible not to smile.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Lhandon said with a warm smile. “It’s always good to face one’s enemies with an open heart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Public Execution

  “That seagull is not coming back,” Roger said after we had waited about thirty minutes. “You know it, I know it, and that seagull knows it.”

  “Maybe we should wait just a little bit longer,” Saruul suggested.

  “Careful, lioness, optimism is toxic. How hard is it to admit that the bastard took the shiny thing and ran, I mean flew, off somewhere? Do you see what I get for listening to the monk?”

  Lhandon paced back and forth, the four of us still in the alley, the smell of fish heavy in the air.

  “We have to figure out what’s going on in the city,” I said, “which means will need to ask someone. And if they don’t know, possibly take a look for ourselves, as dangerous as that may be.”

  “I will cast my rune,” Lhandon said hurriedly. “We were planning on leaving here, right? I am starting to get the feeling that the seagull isn’t going to return; I’m assuming that is what Roger was talking about.”

  “That’s the gist of it,” I told him.

  “Do you have a face you would like to use?” Lhandon asked me as he started to prepare his hand and the string the characters needed for this particular spell.

  I started to think of Altan’s face, nodding at Lhandon when I had a clear picture of his chiseled features in my mind. His rune cast, Lhandon then turned his attention to himself, again going with the visage of the scar-faced monk.

  Saruul fixed her scarf over her head to mostly cover her ears, again attempting to tuck her tail under her robes. “I don’t like doing this,” she said as she tightened up, an uncomfortable look on her face.

  “This was why I suggested getting clothing back in Anand,” Roger said as he landed on my shoulder. “I suppose I should clarify: I meant clothing for me in that last statement. I don’t have an answer for you and your tail. But ask yourself this: who would recognize me if I was wearing say, one of those loose-fitting shirts they wear around here, or even a hat of sorts?”

  “Birds don’t need clothing,” Saruul said. “Especially hats.”

  “Yet you were with me at the market in Dornod helping me get a fur vest,” he shot back. “You’re sending a mixed message here.”

  “Let’s just try to find someone first,” I said, interrupting their banter, “and try to see if we can figure out what’s going on. If we have to do something further, we can address it at that point.”

  “Right,” Lhandon said, taking the lead.

  We made our way to the main thoroughfare, walking up an incline toward the Emperor’s Palace, which I could already see, the grounds hidden by an enormous gray stone wall that sparkled in the sun. The gift shops and tourist spots that had been set up in front of the palace the last time we’d visited were nonexistent, a few of them with patchwork cloths draped over their booths to conceal their wares. Others were simply gone.

  “There’s a guard up there,” Roger said who was tucked under my robes, perched on my shoulder as if he were a lump.

  “Good, let’s ask him.”

  “Maybe Lhandon should go,” Roger told Saruul. “Just in case it’s one of the guards that was there when Nick and I visited the palace.”

  Saruul translated this message to Lhandon, who swiftly made his way over to the guard after adjusting his girth. He tried to walk in a friendly way, bouncing a bit more than usual.

  They spoke, the guard a little confused as to how Lhandon didn’t know what was going on, evident in the incredulous look he was giving the monk.

  Lhandon returned to us, fear now painted across his disguised face.

  “What i
s it?” Saruul started asking.

  “Sukhbat the Precious Heart Gem…” Lhandon bit his lip. “What an absolutely terrible fate!”

  “Did Hugo find out about us staying at his monastery?” I asked.

  “He did, and now they, and by ‘they’ I mean most of the city, have gathered at the public square to witness his execution,” Lhandon said, his face suddenly pale.

  “How did they find out?” Saruul asked.

  “I can only speculate, but my guess would be one of the other monks…”

  “Snitching little monks,” Roger said with a grunt. “This world is a cesspool for iniquity.”

  “Then…” I bit my lip, considering our other options. Sukhbat had gone to extreme lengths to help us, and it was only natural that we helped him in return.

  But doing so would blow our cover in front of an entire city, and who knew how many guards there would be in the public square.

  “We have to…” Lhandon said.

  “I know we do,” I told him.

  Lhandon nodded, accepting his fate. “Nick, I think it’s time we set a marker.”

  “Good call.”

  “That’s right,” Roger said, “I almost forgot about being able to do that. We should be good, then. You can just keep trying out a solution until you get it right. Easy!”

  “But what if there is no solution? And from what Lhandon and I have uncovered, the marker resets itself every twenty-four hours, so if we end up going with one of the solutions in which Sukhbat dies, and enough time passes, I won’t be able to return to this point.”

  “There has to be a solution,” Saruul said, coming to my side and placing her hand on my arm. “Now is not the time to doubt yourself.”

  “She’s right, Nick. Let’s position ourselves where the guards can’t see us,” Lhandon said under his breath, “and then you can set the marker. I only hope that they haven’t already executed him.”

  The four of us moved further and further away from the palace gates, until we came to a tannery, the smell of fresh leather reaching my nostrils. We stepped to the back of the building, which was partially concealed by a few hides hanging from thick ropes. There were a few stumps back here that they used to dry leather on.