“How would you do that?” Lhandon asked.
“I didn’t know how to read or write, so I would always lose, and then they would show me the right way to spell the word, and the youngest of the three would sound it out. Eventually they caught on, and since they were children, children being a lot less observant of class and bias than adults, the oldest daughter took it upon herself to teach me the rest. So that’s how I learned. Anyway,” he said, shaking his head, “I certainly would do this if it will help you, plus I’m sure I would learn a lot about the Immortals in the process.”
“Yes, good. So first we go to the mountains, we find the book, and from there to Sarpang, home of the Druk people.”
“Those are the reptilian people, right?” I asked.
Lhandon nodded.
“Who was the monk back there, the one with Sona?”
I didn’t see much of the guy aside from his face, and the fact that he was in a set of robes similar to the ones the three of us wore. But whoever he was, there was something sinister about him.
“There are different types of monks here in Lhasa and the surrounding kingdoms, at least from what I know,” Lhandon began. “I would say the Druk man is a monk like us, yet he cultivates negative karma.”
“And that’s how he was able to take down Baatar? He was one who took him down, right? I mean, that guy could fly. If he was able to defeat Baatar…”
Lhandon nodded. “True. I don’t know who that man is, but whoever he is, I pray that we don’t run into him again, not yet anyway, not until we are stronger.”
“How did all this go down anyway?” I asked. “They attacked me while I was in my room. I didn’t see much of the surprise attack, aside from a wall coming down after Tashi and the other fire spirit slammed into it. Did anyone see the Druk monk in action?”
“I didn’t,” Tashi said. “I was too busy engaging the other fire spirit.”
Lhandon turned fully back to the path and started walking again, picking up his pace as he spoke: “I was down in the library when I heard commotion above. The men came and got me, and by the time they dragged me up, Baatar and Altan had already been taken.”
“That was really clever, by the way, how you used Gansukh to save us. I didn’t see that one coming,” I told him.
“It sure was cold in my mouth.”
“And your breath smelled horrible,” Gansukh said with a laugh.
“And your prayer bead…” I recalled Baatar giving them to Lhandon in the cave, back before I had the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom. He had yet to use any of them, but seeing one in action told me it was definitely something we needed to add as part of our team combat going forward.
“Yes, I…” Lhandon bowed his head. “I was uncertain how that would turn out. I’m glad it went over smoothly.”
“How many beads do you have left?”
“There are traditionally fifty, and I used one of the beads at the end of the necklace, which is designed to lose that bead if necessary,” he said as he reached into his robes and brought out the beads, showing me what he meant. “I will prep it to be used again. This weapon is in limited supply, but I don’t ever want to waste the opportunity to use it again.”
“Good call. And what about you?” I asked Altan. “Did you see what happened to Baatar?”
“I only saw a little. I was in my room as well, with my window open. I heard the commotion in the courtyard. The hermit was outside meditating when they came, and I believe he cut them off, at least for a moment. The two lifted into the air fighting, the Druk monk was much faster, powered by a dark energy that made it look like his skin was burning blue. As I said, I only got a glimpse of this, because then they came for me pretty quickly after that.”
“I just wish that I had activated my power to absorb blows. Maybe then I could have prevented Baatar’s death,” I said, a sinking feeling in my chest.
“You did what you could do,” said Lhandon. “We have his bag; we’ll go through it later and see what he left behind, plus we know the general location of the book, so there’s that. There’s still hope, Nick. Let’s just make it as far away from the monastery as we can before we rest for the night.”
Chapter Six: Birds of a Feather
We walked for several more hours, far enough away from the crumbled monastery that we were certain Sona hadn’t followed us. We eventually found a spot near a rocky hill jutting out of the woods, a bubbling brook adding a soft ambiance to the place.
It was cold, but we still didn’t want to have a full-on fire. The night was dark enough that a trail of smoke lifting from the woods wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention, but we still wanted to keep it low-key. Altan and I positioned the wood around a pile of porous rocks. Tashi took over from there, quickly bringing the flames down so there wasn’t any fire licking off the wood, just warm embers now.
In the end, we were able to warm the rocks and then keep them that way, Tashi occasionally reigniting the fire and putting it out, our creation sort of reminding me of a radiator.
I couldn’t help but remember the time I lived in Western Massachusetts, in an old home along the Mohawk Trail between Williamstown and North Adams. The radiator had been shit in that old place, and during the most brutal parts of winter, my roommate and I would hover around it in robes, our bodies wrapped in blankets.
I smiled as I watched the embers glow red.
I really was a long way from home.
Altan sat down next to me, bringing his hands to his knees.
“You aren’t going to rest?” I asked him, nodding over to Lhandon, who was already on his side, snoring lightly.
“In a minute.”
The former slave smoothed his hand over his shaved head, an unnerved look on his face.
“We made it,” I reminded him, trying to gauge what was running across his mind’s eye.
“It’s not that,” he said quietly. “Sure, I was starting to really like that monastery, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life there making it better and helping the Exalted One.” He frowned. “You just never know how someone’s going to turn out to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sona. I didn’t tell you much about her when we first met back at the plantation, but there was a time she was under my wing, believe it or not. Not like you; she didn’t stay in my home or anything, but I knew her father, and her mother, and once she was old enough, she would help them in the fields. To see her go from an incredibly poor yet cheerful slave girl to a no-nonsense killer with such utter disregard for karma and piety…”
“It is hard to process,” I said once he didn’t finish his sentence. “I’m sort of going through that myself, in a way, with my friend Bobby. I didn’t know what happened to him after we got separated on the beach, but I sure as hell didn’t expect to find him all drugged up with Madame Mabel, doing whatever it was he was doing for her. Sona was never clear about that.”
“I can’t help you there, I wasn’t generally provided that type of information regarding her guests.”
“Seeing him change like that…” I sighed audibly. “I mean, we were sitting at the table there together, and it was like he didn’t even recognize me, like his eyes were made of old glass. How’s that even possible? Can lotus really do that much damage?”
“A high-level extract could,” Altan said. “There are different strands, you know, and while I had never tried the stuff from her private stash—you know I kept away from the death plant—I’m aware that Madame Mabel had her own crop. She generally had a group who worked for her concocting things, apothecaries, alchemists, and the like. My guess is your friend joined that group. Was he pretty smart?”
“I mean, he wasn’t a genius or anything. He was a middle school teacher, and he spoke a little Spanish,” I said, unable to prevent myself from smiling at this statement as I recalled our time on the beach together, Bobby convinced that being bilingual was going to help him here.
“Spanish?”
“Another langua
ge.”
“Well, there is no telling what happened to him,” Altan finally said. “But there is something I know.”
“What’s that?”
“When Sona reaches Nagchu, she’s going to go absolutely ballistic.”
I imagined her arriving at the plantation, Mabel’s mansion razed to the ground, her fearless leader dead, the only person of authority left being… Evan.
“We have some real enemies,” I said, Evan now on my mind. “Which is why I don’t think we should write them off in the least bit, even if we end up going to a different kingdom. Not with what we probably have coming.”
“I firmly agree.”
“I’m honestly surprised that she didn’t get word sooner. Are you telling me they don’t have a system to send her a message?” I asked, assuming that they had a runner or possibly a carrier pigeon.
“I’m sure they sent someone out, but that person may have just run off. There’s going to be an incredible amount of instability at the plantation now, if it even continues to exist as a plantation in the way it used to exist. This will trickle into Nagchu as well. If I were that runner, and I was told to go find Sona, and I didn’t have a family or any real collateral, I just wouldn’t come back,” Altan said. “Maybe that happened.”
“Maybe. It was clear that she didn’t yet know what happened back in Nagchu. Things would have been much worse if she had.”
Altan and I eventually moved closer to Lhandon so we could enjoy the warmth that Tashi had created with the rocks and the fire. It wasn’t exactly comfortable sleeping on the ground, but I was used to it by this point, able to nod off relatively quickly.
As I was drifting off, I asked Dema to visit me in my dreams, hoping that I could have a word with my dakini, as they called her in Lhasa. But no dreams came, at least none that I could remember.
I awoke to the sound of birds chirping, my eyes settling on an orange squirrel with bushy eyebrows. He barked at another squirrel, the two scampering up a tree trunk.
I sat up and watched the creatures for a moment, a sudden pang in my stomach.
Altan was already up, seated in meditation. And rather than say anything, I silently joined him, taking a few deep breaths, happy to be alive.
I heard my stomach grumble and I ignored it.
Each breath in calmed me even more, tuning me to my environment, the bubbling brook, the squirrels fighting in the trees, a wind picking up and rustling the branches, carrying a scent to my nostrils that reminded me of honeysuckle.
Eventually, Altan spoke. “I’m going to search for food, if you’re interested.”
“Sure,” I said, blinking my eyes open.
I followed Altan into a patch of tall grass, watching him carefully examine some of the plants, tugging a few of them up, sniffing them and stuffing them into the front of his robe.
I pulled up a few as well, and brought one of the bulbs to my nose, finding that it smelled somewhat like garlic.
“This is exactly what I was hoping for,” Altan said, crouched in front of a flower with glossy leaves. “Just pull the leaves off, and leave the flower, these ones grow back in a day or two.”
I did as he instructed, a few of the leaves as large as my hand. Their texture reminded me of spinach, and as we brought our finds back to the camp, Lhandon sat up, a smile on the monk's face. “All we need now is some meat,” he said, licking his lips.
“Monks in my world don’t eat meat,” I told him, realizing we hadn’t really had the conversation before.
“And this is for karmic reasons?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Interesting,” Lhandon said as he massaged his temples. “Then it is something I will have to give thought to. While I don’t always eat meat, we were taught that animals generally used for meat did so for karmic value.”
I offered him a skeptical grin. “You mean they wanted to be eaten?”
Lhandon shrugged. “Everything in this world serves a purpose, and there isn’t really a taboo against eating the flesh of an animal, as long as it was done so respectfully, and by respectfully I mean the killing part. Don’t terrorize the animal, respect it for what it has provided you, and enjoy the meat from there.”
“I’m all down for eating meat; you don’t need to sell me on that point.”
“This should make our search for nourishment easier.” Lhandon uncorked the bottle he kept in the front of his robes, Gansukh emerging from it. “Would you be so obliged to find us a few rabbits, and kill them humanely?”
“With pleasure,” the ice spirit said, drifting away.
“Should I go with it?” Altan asked.
“I can bring them back to you,” Gansukh said over its shoulder.
I hadn’t really thought about it, but of the two spirits who had joined us on this journey, Gansukh was the more tangible, able to truly lift something by forming a frozen hand or hook. Tashi, not so much. And sure enough, not ten minutes later Gansukh returned, holding four rabbits by their ears, their skulls frozen.
“Mating season is upon us,” the ice spirit said. “There are enough rabbits out there to feed the beggars on their annual pilgrimage around Mount Dolma.”
“I’m going to need a knife,” Altan said as he took the frozen rabbits from Gansukh.
“Is there one in the bag?” I asked, referring to Baatar’s bag.
“Let me check with you,” Lhandon said, excitement coming across his face. “Now that we have light, it is important we go through Baatar’s items with care and respect. The Eternal Monk may have left notes about his reincarnation as well.”
“We’re not going after another reincarnation, are we?” I asked with a playful groan.
“Perhaps, but we have plenty of things to do before we add that to our list.”
“That was absolutely fantastic.” Lhandon looked at Altan and me, suddenly embarrassed by the belch that had just left his lips. “My apologies,” he said, bowing his head.
I laughed. “It’s fine, the rabbit was really good.”
“And the Eternal Hermit’s bag will allow us to save the fur for later if we need it,” Altan said. “We don’t have any warm clothing at the moment, our robes are pretty filthy right now as well, and definitely not suited for the higher mountains.”
“As long as we can make sure that the fur doesn’t affect any of the contents of the bag…” Lhandon started to say.
“Not to worry, I will wrap them in some of the leaves of the Dorj tree.” Altan nodded to a tree about fifty feet away, with a trunk that almost resembled a man with rhinophyma. I hadn’t really noticed before how large its leaves were, but a couple of them together could easily cover the rabbit fur, preventing it from touching anything in Baatar’s bag.
Lhandon was satisfied with what we had found in the bag, which included a small pocket knife with a hilt made of bone; a journal with maps and notes regarding wondrous points and hidden treasure in the Darkhan Mountain range, which was where we were heading anyway; a pouch of mysterious crystals no larger than grains of sand; and a series of letters written to Lhandon, which he had pressed against his forehead immediately upon discovering, whispering a quick prayer.
As Altan began gathering leaves, I turned my attention to Lhandon, who had just returned from the stream, his face freshly washed.
“So?”
“Yes?” he asked me.
“Are you going to leave us in suspense here? Or are you going to read the letters?”
“In due time, Nick,” he said. “I want to be in a different place to read them, not at the start of a day’s journey. Otherwise, my mind will be focused on the contents of the letters all day, instead of focusing on getting where we need to go.”
“So tonight then?”
He nodded, his attention turning to his ponytail, which he quickly started to braid up. “Most definitely.”
“What do you think they are about?”
I saw Altan duck down. Tashi flared up, making his way over to the former slave. Gans
ukh held back, a crown of spikes pressing out of the ice spirit’s head as it focused on something in the distance.
I went for my Flaming Thunderbolt.
I held the sheath in my hand as I partially withdrew the blade, the flames licking off the blackened steel. I motioned for Lhandon to get behind me, my focus settling on the forest, watching with bated breath as Altan crawled back over to us.
“What is it?” I asked him, but before he could reply, I looked up to see a turquoise bird with yellow tail feathers do a circle, and nearly fall out of the air once it spotted us.
My mouth dropped open.
“R-Roger?” I glanced back to Lhandon, who was shaking his head, trying to process what he’d just seen.
I stood immediately, not at all concerned if this was a trap or not.
Rather than come toward me, the bird I thought was Roger dipped back behind a tree, Tashi looking at me for guidance.
“Just stay alert,” I said as I moved past the fire spirit and around a bend, where I almost ran headfirst into Roger and Bobby.
“Nick?” Roger asked, trying to contain his joy. “What the fuck are you doing here!?”
“Roger?”
“Nick!”
“Bobby?”
“Urrrggghhhh…”
Bobby was bad off, a confused look on his face as he took me in, his thinning blond hair a mess and his face covered in mud. He stared right through me, his left cheek twitching as he took a single step forward and fell to a knee.
From there he lowered to his side, curling up into a ball, his thumb going into his mouth.
“How did you…?” I wanted to hug the bird, but I didn’t quite understand how the mechanics of that would work. Instead, I sheathed my blade, trying to contain my bewilderment. “I saw the arrow strike you, I saw you hit the ground. I took your feather!” I reached into the pocket of my robe and showed him the yellow feather.
“You were going to find my reincarnation?”
“Of course! I mean…” I shook my head as Altan and Lhandon approached me.
Divine Madness Page 5
