Divine Madness

by Harmon Cooper

  “That doesn’t concern you,” Lhandon told him firmly. “Now, allow us to go free, and we will forgive you of your actions.”

  The two guards, who now stood at the door of the cell, chuckled to themselves.

  “Stop laughing,” Gomchen said, glaring over to them. “You must not judge the monk for being naïve, after all, I believe it was the great Drukpa Kunley who said naivety was the third stage on the Path of the Divine.”

  “He also said the Path of Possession is for those trying to fill an empty void in their souls,” Lhandon said bitterly.

  “He was a mad monk, a nalropa, and he said a lot of frivolous things. It is sad, though, a true pity that you will never understand what it’s like to cultivate negative karma, or how strong you could actually become.”

  “That doesn’t matter to me,” Lhandon said with true conviction in his voice. “I don’t care if it would make me the strongest person in this world. It isn’t worth it; it isn’t the right thing to do, and what you have done will put you on a path to hell.”

  “Some people say the Overworld is hell, and the Underworld is heaven. I suppose it is all about perspective, as are most things. But you know what? Since you both are here, I’m going to give you a chance to escape before Sona gets here, to show you just how gracious of a host I can be.”

  “She’s coming?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  “Yes, but it will be several days from now before she gets here.” Gomchen sniffed the air. “Can’t you smell it? A storm is coming. We will have to wait for the storm to subside before a ship can possibly come from Nagchu, and that’s without taking into account how long it will take our messenger to get there. But I will keep you alive.”

  “Don’t play games with us,” Lhandon said. “We have allies…”

  “Are you referring to the fire spirit and the bird? Because if you are, they’re long gone, which was probably a smart move on their part. The window was open in your bedroom, and there was no way that the bird or the fire spirit could have known what we were planning. It seems to me as if their plan all along was to abandon you.”

  “Whatever,” I said, starting to grow agitated with the calm way in which Gomchen spoke to us. “You don’t know our friends, and if you think that they’re going to leave us down here, you’re in for a rude and very fiery awakening.”

  “Let’s assume they are gone. And now that we’ve assumed that, let’s get back to the topic at hand, to me giving you one chance to escape.”

  “What do you mean?” I finally asked, realizing that he was waiting for one of us to take the bait.

  “Exalted One, you claim that you don’t believe it’s worth cultivating negative karma and that all that we do is bad, and iniquity will get you nowhere. Does this sound about right?”

  Lhandon didn’t answer.

  “So here’s what’s going to happen…” Gomchen said as the two guards came forward, both of them placing their hands on the drawer keeping me in the wall. They pulled me out, one of them unlocking the chains that shackled my wrists and ankles.

  I was naked, and before I could do anything, one of the guards grabbed me by the neck and tossed me out of the drawer, straight to the floor.

  I clenched my fists together, ready for the two to pounce, preparing to fight back in any way that I could. They stepped aside instead, Gomchen with his back to me now, nodding his head.

  He finally turned, showing me that he wore my ring that gave the wearer the Fist of Force ability.

  “Beat me, and we will let you go free. You will go free naked, so that may be a bit uncomfortable, but we will let you go. And that is an order,” he told the guards. “If he beats me, you will free the monk, and let them both leave here.”

  The two guards nodded, both with their right hands on the hilts of their swords.

  “I realize it isn’t fair to have to fight me naked, but I am but a monk, and I really don’t have much training when it comes to combat,” Gomchen said, clearly lying through his teeth.

  “Okay,” I said as I pressed myself to my feet.

  I took in two deep breaths and brought my hands up to the ready, just as Dohna had taught me.

  I bounced on my knees a little, making sure that I was loose.

  And rather than give away the fact that I was going to attack, I simply launched into my first punch, Gomchen stepping aside.

  I nearly hit the bars and stopped myself just in time.

  I turned to meet him again, Gomchen delivering a punch to my stomach that sent me flying into the bars, the sting radiating down to my legs.

  I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a swift stomp from the evil monk.

  Moving just how Dohna rehearsed with me, I came for him, and then stepped to the side at the last minute, leading him to believe that I was about to strike. He tried to avoid my attack; I cracked my fist against the side of his head, ducking his next punch.

  A wave of force threw me into the brick wall, knocking the air out of me.

  “Nick!” Lhandon said, trying to break free of his leg and wrist shackles.

  “Okay,” I told the monk, spitting blood. I traced up the Rune of Distortion, Goh-Mo, closing my eyes just as I finished off the character.

  But rather than distort the reality of anyone in front of me, I received a punch to the face that made everything flash red.

  I landed on the floor, blood from my mouth quickly pooling on the filthy stone tiles.

  I wiped my blood on my arm and swung my fist at Gomchen, trying to give myself a little distance so I could cast the rune that allowed me to absorb three strikes.

  He kneed me in the chest and I hit the ground again.

  “Your runes aren’t strong enough to work against me,” he said, stepping on my wrist. “But let’s make this fun, let’s make it so you can’t actually heal yourself.” Gomchen dropped to one knee and delivered a punch to my hand that shattered all my bones.

  I cried out, and as I did, he punched the other hand, breaking the bones there as well, my fingers all but useless.

  “Put him back in,” he told the two guards as he stood, dusting off his robes. “That was your only chance; you will be in here until Evan and Sona arrive. Perhaps I will feed you, as I’d like you to be alive for when they get here. But not today, and probably not tomorrow.” Gomchen reached the door of the cell and stopped. “I hope you enjoyed my teaching, Exalted One.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dungeon Hallucinations

  “Nick… Nick…”

  I heard Lhandon’s voice come to me, and as soon as I blinked my eyes open I realized that I was back in the drawer, my fingers screaming with pain, my inner organs throbbing.

  “Lhandon?” I asked, my breaths shorter than normal.

  “Nick, you’re awake!” He swallowed hard, and as I turned to look over at him, I saw that his eyes were bulging. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I’m so sorry to see you are suffering!”

  I heard a gastrointestinal noise behind the wall, Lhandon letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m so sorry for that as well…”

  “It’s not your fault,” I managed to tell him, trying to breathe out of my mouth now. “How long was I out?”

  “I lost track of time,” he said. “It has been a while, though. Hours.”

  “My hands…”

  I could still move my wrists, but all my fingers were all but numb. I tried to flop the palm of my hand against the inner wall of my encasement, which only created a sharp sting that shot straight up my arm.

  “You have to heal yourself,” Lhandon said, now focused on me and breathing heavily. “You can do it, Nick, use Lha-Mo.”

  “He broke all my fingers…”

  “Try your toes.”

  “My toes?”

  “It may work!”

  “Um… sure.”

  I started by making a square with my big toe. I then traced a curled line extending from the bottom of the square, adding the two slash marks, and instantly noticed a warmth radiating from my stomach.r />
  I heard my bones crack as my hands repaired themselves, as my bruises faded away, my breaths becoming lighter.

  I let out a gasp followed by a sigh.

  “Better?”

  “Better.”

  “I know that Roger and Tashi haven’t abandoned us,” Lhandon started to say. “But perhaps they will have trouble finding us down here.”

  I looked over to the entrance of our self, at the lock. “If they do get down here, the only way that we will be able to open the door is by melting through it, which may take a moment.”

  “It is very thick steel,” Lhandon agreed.

  “How many days does it take to get from Nagchu to here by sea?” I asked him.

  “I would say at least three days, but if there’s a storm it will take Evan and Sona longer, and as Gomchen mentioned, the messenger will have to reach there first. I’m afraid we may be down here for a while unless we figure out another way!”

  “I’ll keep trying to call my dakini, but I sort of shot myself in the foot by healing up.” I glanced at Lhandon to find him looking at me curiously, his cheeks still red with embarrassment from the bowel movement he’d just made. “It’s an expression. The point is: it is easier for her to come when I’m injured. Shit. I wasn’t thinking straight. I should have stayed that way.”

  “But weren’t you suffering?”

  “I was in pain, yes, but it was nothing that I haven’t experienced before, especially in my training with Dohna.” I tried to move, even though I knew it was useless. “This is the worst.”

  “We need to focus and try to come up with a way to get out of here. Perhaps we should meditate.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll start us off,” Lhandon said with a deep breath in. “Close your eyes, and start to let your panicked thoughts filter away. We are trapped. That is a fact. But a solution will present itself, of this I’m sure. Take a deep breath in, all the way to the back of your skull, as the Eternal Hermit once instructed us. Imagine you are breathing through a tunnel. Start to ignore my voice, and let the void of mindfulness wash over you.”

  I started doing as Lhandon said, breathing in as deeply as possible, ignoring the smells in the room, and the fact that I was trapped. It took me a few breaths to get into a groove, but eventually I did, my thoughts now on the periphery.

  Lhandon’s voice softened and as it did my mind started to dive forward, energy cascading all around me.

  How do we get out of here? How do we free ourselves of this terrible dungeon?

  I thought this question into the void, a ripple of purple light moving over me.

  I basked in its rays for a moment, sifting through dozens of visualizations pouring through my skull. I silenced all of them with a deep breath, returning my focus to simply being present, letting the emotions I had been experiencing wilt away from my body.

  Rune of Distortion…

  It was Dema’s voice, but rather than react, I simply nodded, realizing what she was asking me to do.

  I stayed in the space for another twenty or thirty minutes, calming myself even further, almost drifting off to sleep.

  But I didn’t forget the answer that had come to me.

  I eventually came out of it, turning to see that Lhandon was still in meditation, the worried look now stripped from the monk’s face.

  He sensed that I was finished and opened his eyes, turning his head to me. “Anything?”

  “I have an idea,” I told him. “She spoke to me.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  Lhandon nodded, resting his head on the metal bar that kept our necks erect.

  I traced up Goh-Mo, the Rune of Distortion, by starting with an angled box, and pulling a line off the top of it, which I extended downward, finishing it off with a curl.

  I did so with my eyes open, and as soon as I was done with the character, my perception began to morph.

  “I’m ready, Dema,” I said aloud, looking to my left, to the entrance of our cell, where I assumed she would come from, everything around me kaleidoscoping.

  But rather than my guardian angel appearing, someone else began to take shape.

  “It’s you,” I said, my eyes going wide as the man moved right through the bars.

  He nodded.

  “Please, go find help, go get Roger, get Tashi. Please,” I said, hardly able to focus on him. “We need your help. We’re counting on you.”

  The man started to walk toward me, pressing right through my head.

  I looked right to see him do the same to Lhandon, the man stopping right before he reached the brick wall.

  He turned to me, nodded, and merged into the wall, disappearing completely.

  “Was it her?” Lhandon asked after he didn’t say anything.

  “No, it was… Him.”

  “Who?”

  I gulped. “My double.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Awful Fish Offal

  Hours passed.

  At some point I dozed off, waking again when Lhandon started snoring, the portly monk eventually snoring so loudly that he woke himself up too. He turned to me and apologized, his cheeks flushing red with embarrassment.

  “It’s fine,” I assured him.

  “How long do you think we’ve been sleeping?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “But it definitely wasn’t long enough.”

  “I hope your double finds Tashi and Roger,” Lhandon said. “I hope he does it soon.”

  “Same, and I wish we had a better way to track time. There’s absolutely no light coming in from outside. I can’t tell if a day has passed, or if it has only been a few hours.”

  “It has been more than a few hours,” Lhandon said, “but I don’t know if it has been a day or not. We must make it through this, Nick! We just have to trust that this is going to work out, that a solution will present itself.”

  “We should have just gone straight to the docks,” I told him, disdain creeping into my voice. “I met a woman outside named Tsegi while you were in the lodge. She seemed to be trustworthy, and her family has a vessel that leaves every morning to the Island Kingdom. We should have just gone with her, and slept on the ship for the night. It would have been the smartest thing to do.”

  “Perhaps, but both of us were in need of a bath.”

  “Can’t argue with that. Still, it makes me angry that we came all the way through the Great Plateau, only to be poisoned while we were having a bowl of soup.” I started to clench my fists together, feeling my shackles constrict just a little.

  “It was a dirty trick, I agree, and if the owner of that lodge had a part in it, I hope he one day realizes what he has done, and the bad karma that he has reaped from doing so.”

  “Wouldn’t he just be cultivating negative karma?”

  “Not necessarily. Misdeeds and other sinful acts actually disrupt the flow of karma. If that has not been clear to you, please try to think of it this way from now on: a normal person doing something wrong to another person doesn’t necessarily cultivate negative karma, it creates bad karma instead, which will lead to a lesser rebirth. This isn’t the same for Gomchen, who is actively trying to cultivate negative karma, which makes him stronger. There are a number of rituals involved for someone to take the Path of Possession that he is on. A layperson won’t experience the same results.”

  “I didn’t realize that was the way it worked.”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” he said, subtly nodding his head and wincing at the pain in his neck. “I do wish we had a pillow to place our heads on, but I guess that wouldn’t be torturous enough.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re probably right.”

  I heard the door shut down the hallway, and the sound of footsteps on the stone.

  The two reptilian guards from earlier opened the cell door and made their way over to Lhandon.

  “What are you doing?” Lhandon asked as they pulled out his drawer and began removing his shackles.

&nb
sp; “Hey!” I rattled the cuffs around my wrists and ankles, trying to get their attention.

  The two men ignored me as they rolled Lhandon out, the naked monk flopping to the floor.

  “Please, don’t do this,” he said as one of the guards dragged him to the other side of the room.

  “Gomchen asked us to soften you up a bit.” The guard brought his fist into Lhandon’s stomach. “If you ask me, you already feel soft enough.”

  “Fight me!” I screamed at them, spit flying out of my mouth. “Leave him alone!”

  I continued to try to wiggle my way out of the drawer, craning my neck at the same time, hoping to see what was happening to Lhandon.

  They were directly behind the crown of my head now, so I was only able to make out what was happening through noises, Lhandon whispering a mantra as the two Druk guards beat him, as he tried to block their punches.

  “Do something!” I shouted to Lhandon. “Fight back!”

  One of them grabbed Lhandon by the throat and slammed him into the brick wall, the action now within my pane of vision. The man turned him over and forcefully pressed Lhandon’s face against the brick wall, pulling his head back using his ponytail.

  “No!” I shouted, my blood boiling.

  Time slowed down, but only for me.

  I still saw what was about to happen, that the guard was about to slam Lhandon’s head into the brick wall…

  “Come on…” I said, searching my brain for an idea, some way to help Lhandon.

  An idea came and I went with it.

  I closed my eyes and cast the Rune of Distortion, waiting with my eyes shut for time to speed back up.