“Okay,” I told him, convinced, “what about that image?”
I pointed to an image of a woman being split in half by an invisible sword, two demons ejaculating at her feet.
“That one is easy. This image represents dissolving the ego, only to realize that to dissolve the ego you have to stroke the ego, and stroking ego produces results, and those results are represented in the ejaculate, the seeds of a new future.”
“Color me impressed,” I told Lhandon as we came into a larger room with a ceiling carved with sexual images.
I nearly stumbled backward when I saw the skeleton sitting before us in a meditative posture, his fingers arranged in a strange way, his mouth hanging open.
“Flatulence of a Dragon,” Lhandon said, getting to his knees immediately and bringing his head to the ground, bowing. “Yes, that was what he was known as,” he said to me, still bowing.
“Well, I guess I can say that I’ve seen everything now,” Roger said as Tashi came forward, bowing in a similar gesture to Lhandon.
I did the same, feeling my heavy pack on my shoulders shift forward and nearly hit the back of my head.
Roger screeched when the skeleton moved, the three of us sitting up, Lhandon immediately whispering a mantra.
“Who dares disturb me?” the skeleton asked, dust slowly cascading off his form.
“It is I, the Exalted One,” Lhandon said, bowing again, clearly not as frightened as I was at the skeleton that was speaking to us. “We come for your blessings.”
The skeleton merely stared at Lhandon.
As it did, I slowly got to my feet, my hand coming to the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom.
I looked to Tashi to see that he, too, was on alert.
“We have come here to receive your blessings, Flatulence of a Dragon,” Lhandon said again. “We are practitioners of the Path of the Divine, and while we recognize the difference between our paths, we also recognize that they ultimately have the same goal, to reach enlightenment, to cultivate karma, and if one wishes, to separate one’s self from the cycle of rebirth.”
“Ha!” the skeleton threw its head back, its jaw slightly dislocating. “Since now I thrive on chung, once I must have been a bee; since now I am so lustful, once I must have been a cock; since now I am so angry, once I must have been a snake; since now I am so slothful, once I must have been a pig; since now I am so shameless, once I must have been a madman; since now I am such a liar, once I must have been an actor; since now my manners are so rude, once I must have been a monkey; since now I have such bloodlust, once I must have been a wolf; since now I have so tight a sphincter, once I must have been a monk; since now I enjoy cheating others, once I must have been a banker; since now I am so loquacious, once I must have been a woman; but I cannot tell you if this is really true. Consider the matter. What is your opinion?”
“Our opinion?” Lhandon asked, glancing over his shoulder at me.
“Wrong answer.”
We heard a rumbling behind us.
Rocks starting to collapse in the cavern that we had just passed through.
Tashi tried to blaze through, only to realize that we wouldn’t be able to follow him. He returned, just as the skeleton turned to dust, a burst of maniacal laughter filling the cavern, another passage at the back of the space sliding open.
I protected my head with my hands, making sure that nothing was coming down from above us. Once I was sure we were safe, I looked to the new passage that had opened.
“Are you okay?” Lhandon asked me.
“I’m fine,” I said as I moved into the new room.
“It appears that it was a trap all along.” Lhandon shook his head. “What a pity, what a true pity!”
The room that had opened up was about the size of a large closet, the ceiling extending indefinitely. Tashi joined me, growing in size, his flames revealing just how high the ceiling reached.
“Let me see how far up it goes,” Roger said as he flew over my shoulder. It felt like several minutes before he returned.
“The exit is up there,” he said upon his return, “but it’s really high up. Also, for the record, I told you this was a trap.”
“But how are we going to get up there?” I asked him, looking around the space again, and seeing that it was too wide, that we wouldn’t be able to shimmy our way out.
“I’ve got an idea,” Lhandon said, now directly behind me. He stuck his hand into the front of his robes and brought out the prayer beads that Baatar had given him.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Bead Work
Lhandon and I now stood in the adjoined room, the monk holding one of the prayer beads Baatar had given him. “Are you ready?”
“Let’s see what it does.”
He dropped the prayer bead onto the ground and as soon as he did, it ballooned in size, lifting both of us several feet into the air.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Roger said as he lowered onto my shoulder.
Tashi was already at the top, casting light down so we could see how far we had to go.
“Again?” Lhandon asked, grinning. “This is kind of fun.”
“Definitely.”
He popped another prayer bead off its string. It hit the one beneath us and grew in size, our feet naturally moving onto it.
We were now blocking the entrance to the room with the skeleton ash inside.
“This is going to work,” he said as he dropped a third prayer bead. The bead expanded beneath us, lifting us up even further, scraping against the wall as it did so.
“Definitely,” I told him again.
“But then we have the rest of this cavern to get through.”
“I can take a look,” Roger said as he lifted into the air.
“Actually, just stay here,” I told him. “You can go check with Tashi later, just in case something tries to get you.”
“Get me? Maybe you’re right. There could be bats in there...” Roger landed on my shoulder again and observed Lhandon dropping another prayer bead.
We moved up again.
The oversized beads beneath us shifted a little, but the space was small enough that neither of us actually fell off the makeshift platform.
“And what was with that name anyway?” I asked Lhandon as he prepared to drop the next bead. “Flatulence of a Dragon?”
Roger snorted.
“He was mocking the names that people on our path give each other,” Lhandon explained. “You know, kind of like the name I have, the Exalted One. That sort of thing. Drukpa Kunley viewed these titles as frivolous.”
We moved up another level, the bead snapping through a couple inches of the rock sticking out from the wall. We were about halfway there, and as we grew closer to the top, Lhandon started talking about Drukpa Kunley again.
“This wasn’t really his burial,” he explained. “What he has done here is quite brilliant, actually.”
“I’m pretty sure that was a skeleton back there,” I told him, “even if it did turn to ash.”
“Skeletons are easy to come by.”
“Talking ones?”
“With the right rune, yes. It is common knowledge that Drukpa set several false graves like this across Lhasa. I thought they’d all been discovered, to be honest with you. But apparently I was wrong.”
“So this means his actual gravesite is still out there somewhere?” I asked as he dropped another prayer bead.
“That’s right. And perhaps I will put finding it on my bucket list one day.”
“What if his actual gravesite is just like this one, a skeleton talking nonsense?”
“Unfortunately, there was wisdom in his nonsense, and I only wish I’d been able to write it down. No matter,” Lhandon said as he dropped another prayer bead. “His gravesite hasn’t been discovered yet, of that I’m sure, and perhaps I will be able to find it one day.”
“You aren’t afraid that we’re going to be trapped in here?” I asked him.
I hadn’t really given it much thoug
ht.
As soon as the entrance caved in, my mind jumped to figuring out another way out of here, ignoring the fact that we could be trapped.
“No, I don’t think we’re trapped,” Lhandon said with a calmness I appreciated.
“Let’s hope that you’re right.”
It took us ten beads in total to make it to the top. I helped Lhandon up to the ledge and then hopped up myself, both of us turning to the narrow passageway ahead.
“I will handle the light from here. Tashi, Roger, please move ahead,” Lhandon said, his hand igniting. I had seen him use this rune before, the light glowing around his fingertips, bright enough that Tashi could move away.
“We’ll be back,” Roger said as they pressed down the narrow passage.
“Be careful!” Lhandon called after them.
Both of us still had our packs on, and while we would be able to fit through the path that lay ahead, I worried about what would happen if it became too narrow.
“What’s the point in all this anyway?” I asked.
“You mean the trap that was left for us?”
I nodded.
“You’re familiar now with the Path of Possession, created by Ganbold the Strong, the path that Sona and her kin practice. It is well known that Drukpa Kunley had incredible items that he had used in his tantric cultivation rituals, which someone on the Path of Possession could potentially use to gain instant power. To make it more difficult for them, he created the fake burial sites. It is unfortunate, too, that we discovered this one, because now that means there is one less decoy in existence for those trying to instantly grow powerful.”
“Are you upset with this mad monk?”
“Honestly? No, I understand nalropas, even if I don’t agree with their interpretation of the Way. I just hope that we aren’t down here for too long,” Lhandon said. “And it definitely beats being out in the sun.”
“I agree with you there. The last several days have been brutal.”
He nodded. “There’s only so much that we can learn from these extreme conditions before we start to question why we are subjugating ourselves to them.”
I saw a bit of light coming down the passageway toward us, Roger arriving before Tashi.
“So I have good news, and I have bad news,” the tropical bird said.
“What’s the bad news?” I asked.
“There’s a huge drop-off up ahead. Tashi flew down to the bottom. It’s filled with spikes and skeletons of various cave animals. It’s not a good look, and the gorge is wide enough that you won’t be able to jump across it.”
“Did you happen to see how wide it was?” Lhandon asked after I translated. “No, that’s not the question I’m trying to ask, I’m more interested in its volume.”
“I don’t know if I can adequately answer that one,” Roger said, “but you’re welcome to come and take a look.”
“He says to come take a look for yourself,” I translated.
“Then let’s do that,” Lhandon said, leading the way.
“Please, be careful, Exalted One,” Tashi said. “We didn’t see any traps, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any in here.”
“Very well,” Lhandon said, careful with each step.
I joined him, the hallway brightly illuminated by both Lhandon’s glowing hand and Tashi’s flames. To make it even brighter, I drew my Flaming Thunderbolt, holding it at my side.
“What was the good news?” I asked Roger. “You never mentioned that.”
“Oh! Well, if you get past this deep gorge, there’s an exit to the cave. And that’s not all. We could see Sarpang from the exit. It might be another forty-minute walk or so, but we’re almost there.” Roger fanned himself with his own wing. “But don’t get too excited. We have to get past this gorge first.”
“He says Sarpang is on the other side of the gorge,” I told Lhandon.
“Most excellent!”
It took us another few minutes to reach the gorge, mostly because Lhandon and I were taking our steps very carefully, expecting darts to fly out of the walls, or an armored skeleton to appear.
Lhandon looked out over the gorge, licking his lips as he mentally measured the volume of the space. He brought the rest of his prayer beads out and bit his lip.
“You’re planning to fill it, aren’t you?” I asked him.
“Do you think it’s enough?” Tashi asked.
“Well, if it isn’t, then we’re going to have to think of something else.”
Lhandon started tossing his prayer beads into the gorge one at a time. At first, all I could hear was the beads hitting the ground and growing, but then I started hearing them landing on top of one another, shifting into place.
“I don’t even remember when you got those things,” Roger said as Lhandon kept chucking the prayer beads into the gorge.
“He received them from Baatar, when we first met him in his cave on our way to get the Flaming Thunderbolt. You weren’t with us at the time.”
“And he only now decides to use them?”
“He’s used them since, but…”
“I sort of forgot that I had them,” Lhandon said as he tossed another bead in, the cacophony of the beads landing against one another becoming louder and louder. “But they’re coming in handy now. Imagine what would have happened if I’d used all of them before!”
“I would be teaching you two how to fly,” Roger said.
“How’s that?” I asked him.
“Easy. I would first instruct you on how to make wings based on the items you have in your bags. And then, the two of you would dive to your deaths, because neither of you are going to be able to fly. Sorry to be blunt. At least you can heal yourself, but then you’d keep dying because there are a lot of spikes down there. You’d eventually starve to death, or some cave rats would eat you. I don’t know.”
“Thanks for being so reassuring, Roger.”
“That’s what you keep me around for, right?”
I could tell by the sound that the beads were getting closer to the top.
“Almost out,” Lhandon said as he tossed in the last seven or eight beads he had.
I looked out over the gorge noticing that the beads weren’t quite level with our current surface. But it was only a few feet difference, which meant we would be able to pull ourselves up.
Well, I would.
It was going to be difficult to get Lhandon up, but I quickly figured out a solution.
“All right, here’s what we do,” I said, telling Lhandon my plan.
It was useless to keep our gourds, especially because the water was giving us weight. We drank as much of the water as we could, leaving our gourds behind.
Once we did that, I turned to the ledge overlooking the gorge filled with enormous prayer beads.
I was the first to step down onto the beads, Lhandon following me, both of us making our way over to the other side of the gorge, careful not to slip into the cracks caused by the giant beads.
We reached the other side. I brought my fist back, and even though I knew it was going to hurt, I punched a couple grooves into the rock wall, using my Fist of Force power.
I then healed myself, the pain disappearing almost immediately.
I gave my bag to Lhandon and jumped up, pulling myself to the top of the ledge. He handed me my bag, which I also pulled up, followed by his bag. Once that was done, Lhandon used the grooves I’d created to scale to the top of the ledge.
It took him a little while, and there were points that I didn’t think he was going to make it, but once he was within distance for me to reach him, I helped, Roger even clamping his beak on Lhandon’s robes also trying to help pull him up.
We finally made it over the ledge, both of us exhausted.
“Thank you, Eternal Hermit,” Lhandon whispered as he finally sat up, dusting off his dirty white robes. “Whew. Let’s get to the city, get a hot bath, get into some new clothing, and continue from there.”
“Good call,” I told him a
s we made our way toward the exit of the cave.
I could already see the light coming from outside, and as we approached the exit, the sky opened up to us, revealing a great sea in the distance, the relatively large merchant village of Sarpang cast before it.
I spotted a path that led down from the cave entrance, which would make things even easier.
We were safe, we had finally made it.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Soup in Sarpang
We weaved down the mountain pass with relative ease, a soft breeze carrying a briny smell with it.
Sarpang was built mostly on stilts, with platforms and rope-lined plankways serving as the streets for its reptilian citizens. There were several buildings built into the cliff wall on the far side of the village, their exteriors expertly decorated with elaborate, totem pole-like imagery.
I noticed a handful of ships at the docks, one with white and black masts passing by a large lighthouse made of stone. I saw another lighthouse like it, both with large harpoons hooked to giant crossbows that sat on buildings adjacent to the lighthouse.
“What’s that for exactly?” I asked Lhandon as we reached the bottom of the mountain pass. The four of us came to the outskirts of a market that was partially on dry land, and partially on the raised platforms that formed the foundation of the village.
“Sea dragons,” Lhandon said with a shudder.
I nodded, recalling the sea dragon that Hugo and I had encountered. “Makes sense.”
Not everyone in the market looked reptilian.
There were pirates, and a few people with features I’d never seen before, such as a pair of men with completely red skin and black tattoos down the back of their skulls, and a particular woman with long, colorful feathers instead of hair.
The market smelled of fish and spice, the seafood section crowded and rambunctious. Men and women stood on crates, calling out their prices on their latest catches. I watched as one man held a starfish, pointing at people as he yelled out prices, the starfish’s legs curling while he shook it in the air. A woman next to him had similar starfish, although hers was blue and completely dead.
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