Warriors of the Way-Pentalogy

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  “Humans can become part Rah Ven?” said Kal.

  “It’s where all the stories of werewolves come from,” said Mara. “Rah Ven are the source.”

  “Werewolves, bah! Pretty name for an ugly creature. Rah Ven blood mingled with human, it creates one of those— things. Not human and not Rah Ven. Something in between,” said the healer.

  “Does that mean…” said Kal as she looked at the beds.

  The healer slammed her hand on the table. The sound filled the small room, bouncing off the walls.

  “I be here to control the flow. No one can question that. I be the one to make sure the flow is correct and no harm comes to them as best I can,” said the healer.

  “We do not doubt your abilities, grandmother,” said Sylk. “I just feel we have been here too long. We have urgent matters in the hub.” How are we going to stop Roman and Rael? Where are you, Dante?

  She seemed to calm down after Sylk spoke to her.

  “More urgent than your friends surviving?” said the healer.

  Sylk remained silent as he looked out the window.

  “What about Zen?” said Kal. “He doesn’t look good.”

  “The large one?” said the healer, nodding. “Yes, the poison is running fierce in him. Even with extra blood, his outcome is a question. Only the flow can help him now.”

  “And the others?” said Sylk.

  “One more day, one more day should suffice,” said the healer.

  “We can do one more day if we have no choice,” said Sylk.

  “None. Come with me, alpha,” she said as she went to the back room where the beds were. She closed the door behind them, keeping the others out.

  “We need to talk private. The big one is worse off than the rest. The flow won’t help him,” she said.

  “You said—”

  “I only said what I said because the girl is fond of him, but it’s not going well for him.”

  “Is he going to die?”

  “The poison did too much damage. I can’t bring him back to the way he was before, but I can let the Rah Ven blood mix with his, making him one of those things…”

  “A werewolf,” said Rah Ven.

  She waved a hand dismissively at his comment.

  “We have a place for them here where he can live until he accepts his new blood,” she said.

  “Will he be safe?” said Sylk.

  “He will be part Rah Ven and he will have life, but he must stay here for his first year to manage the change. It’s that or death. This is your choice as alpha.”

  “I choose life,” said Sylk. The warrior will need a new guardian.

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, adjusting the vials and flow of blood in Zen’s bed.

  “It’s best if they think he has passed from the poison. He will not be able to be part of that life again,” said the healer.

  “You mean lie to them,” said Sylk.

  “I will do it. You are the alpha now. This is not your task. This life will be soft lies to hold back the hard truths for the good of the pack,” she said.

  “Grandmother,” said Sylk. “What of the pack now? Not all were pleased with the outcome of the ritual.”

  “Cane’s dogs.” She spat to the side. “You speak wisdom. They will want revenge. You must deal with them soon or they will splinter the whole. They won’t act so close to Cane’s defeat in the circle. Cowards like that will wait until you are not watching, striking when they think you are weak. You must not show weakness in dealing with them. Like bad blood they must be removed before they poison the whole,” she said.

  “Like Cane,” said Sylk.

  “I will shed no tears for that one. Rotten to the core. I don’t know about this night shadow business they tell me you accused him of, but he was a bad one, evil. We’re better off with him gone,” she said.

  “Grawl is a crafty one,” said Sylk. His eyes were feeling heavy.

  “That he is. You are the leader for Grawl now,” she said, pointing at Sylk. “Duly done by ritual and blade. Until Grawl comes back and takes his rightful place, you speak and act as leader of the pack.”

  Sylk nodded. Did Grawl see this far ahead? I will have to ask him when we meet again. He sat down on one of the unoccupied beds, and rested his head, letting it sink into one of the pillows. The healer stood and put a hand on his lap.

  “Rest a moment, I will do this,” she said as she left for the other room. The smell of blood permeated the room, coppery and pungent. Even after all this time he could smell a capful in a large room. Rah Ven or human, it was the same. The smell was familiar, like an old shirt. So much blood in his lifetime, on and off the battlefield. I am never far away from the blood.

  He could hear the healer in the other room and Kal’s cry.

  “No, no, you said he would pull through,” said Kal.

  The pain and loss were clear in Kal’s voice. She had lost her sister and now this. He could hear the healer’s soothing voice and Kal’s sobs.

  Soft lies for hard truths. Life is blood and blood is life.

  He was just closing his eyes when Samir awoke with a yell, startling him. Sylk went over to the syllabist as the healer entered the room.

  “What is it, Samir, are you in pain?” said Sylk.

  The healer began to adjust the liquids and Samir began to drift off. He gripped Sylk’s hand with surprising strength.

  “Karashihan, the warrior— the warrior is gone,” said Samir as he drifted back into unconsciousness.

  FORTY-THREE

  THE VORTEX WAS gone. I stood in a rock garden. I could just make out the details of the garden as my eyes began to adjust when a fist crashed against the side of my head, sending me reeling.

  “That was for the sword in the throat. Be thankful I don’t just return the favor,” said Rael. “I brought him here. He’s all yours now. I have ascendants to kill.”

  I found one of the benches at the edge of the garden and sat down, rubbing my face.

  “You’ll have to forgive him,” said the figure that appeared next to me causing me to jump off the bench. “He hates it when I bring him back. I think one day I will give him his wish and let him die, just not today.”

  The old man sat very still and looked at me. His storm-cloud gray eyes pierced right through me. His white hair was long and drawn back into a braid. His slender build radiated strength and power. He wore a simple gray robe that matched the color of his eyes. His hands were lost in the folds of his sleeves. I was looking at Sylk’s ancestor, Lucius.

  “Are you Lucius the destroyer?” I said.

  He laughed. It was a pleasant sound that filled the garden.

  “You have something that belongs to me, warrior,” he said.

  I searched within to see if I could feel Maelstrom, but felt nothing.

  “Don’t bother. You won’t feel any chi in this place,” he said.

  “Who are you?”

  “The real question is, who are you? Haven’t you ever wondered how you ended up with your weapon? A weapon designed to cause massive death and destruction?”

  “The weapon doesn’t make the warrior, the warrior makes the weapon,” I said.

  “Ah, my old friend Owl. He betrayed me in the end, when I counted on him the most. I see he has moved on and yet a part of him remains, in you. If you believe that, what kind of warrior are you? Did you pick the weapon or did it pick you?”

  “Sylk accelerated the process of my manifestation. That was the reason Maelstrom picked me,” I said, my words uncertain.

  “Sylk. Did you know he is my distant relative and yet even now plots against me? Where is the family loyalty? No, warrior, he facilitated your manifestation but you picked. He opened the door but you walked in. You picked the weapon— my weapon.”

  “Who are you?” I needed to hear it.

  “I am the owner of the weapon you possess or that now possesses you. My name is Lucius Iman, first in the house of Iman, chief among the wavedancers and first of the Karashihan
,” he said.

  “Are you removing your weapon?” I felt it was an important question given the circumstances.

  “My weapon is bonded to you, which makes extricating it difficult. If I kill you it will merely return to the void and await another vessel. I cannot access the void from here. Which means I must remove it from you while you are alive,” he said.

  “How?”

  “I will coax the weapon out by threatening your life,” he said.

  We began to walk the garden. I could hear birds singing in the trees. Along the path, the cherry blossoms were in in bloom, their petals a soft pink against a blue sky. The aroma wafted over us, reminding me of roses.

  “Why do you need it?”

  “Maelstrom is a tool, one of three foci my family created. With it I can locate the other two and continue what I started before I was exiled here. Before the order of warriors betrayed me and my family.”

  “I was told you betrayed them,” I said. I don’t know who to believe.

  “By Owl, no doubt. History is written by the victors, warrior. Did he tell you why they were so determined to wipe out my family?”

  “He said you were the first Karashihan but decided to be a warrior with two guardians,” I said.

  “Decided? I was assigned two guardians to be my ‘escorts’ wherever I went. The abilities of my bloodline were deemed too powerful. Wavedancers do not need to enter the mirror to use their ability. We can listen through surfaces as well. At the very head of the Order I uncovered corruption. The Warriors of the Way were being led by corrupt Samadhi. Do you know this term?” he said.

  I nodded. “Samadhi are the masters of the respective disciplines within the order of the Warriors of the Way.”

  “Correct. Each discipline must have three masters to ensure the knowledge is never lost,” he said. “I was beyond the Samadhi in my discipline. When I uncovered their plan to subjugate the planes, I took action.”

  “Subjugate the planes? How?”

  “How many planes have a Watch now?”

  “Every plane has a presence of the order. We keep the planes safe from our enemies.”

  “Which enemies?”

  I remained silent. So far the enemies I had were the Black Lotus and the warriors sent after me. Even Roman wasn’t out to kill or imprison me like the Lotus had done.

  “I saw with my own eyes the atrocities committed by the Order on the outer planes, the ones not directly connected to the hub. When I confronted my peers, I was called unstable. The power had gone to my head, they said. They secretly sent the newly formed Black Lotus after my family, murdered them in their sleep. In their beds. My wife. My children. They tried to eradicate my entire bloodline. They took everything from me, men and women I had trusted with my life. That was when I began to kill Samadhi.”

  His voice had grown thick as he recalled the memories.

  “How did you end up here?” I said.

  “Some of the Lotus had fled to these outer planes. I gave chase. My hatred knew no bounds. They had killed my family, warrior. I did not know this was a trap. Once in the outer plane, they severed the connection to the hub plane, stranding this triad. Once I was stranded, my abilities diminished. They placed suppressor bracelets on me and purged me of my chi, causing me to lose my weapon. You now sit in the lost triad,” he said.

  “How did they sever the connection?” The longer I keep him talking the longer I have to figure a way out.

  “The hub is the source of chi to the planes. It radiates outward from there. Each plane has its own source of chi that is augmented by the hub source. As long as you are connected to the hub you will feel no measurable difference in your ability. Once cut from the hub, it will feel like you have lost your chi,” he said.

  He turned to face me then, his gray eyes measuring me. His face was tranquil. A man at peace with his decision.

  “Have you made your peace? It’s probable you will not survive the purging,” he said.

  I dug deep, searching for any sensation of Maelstrom or chi.

  “It’s futile, warrior. It took me many decades to reconnect to my source of chi in this place. Bring him to the tré,” he said.

  Two Gyrevex appeared beside me and grabbed my arms. I couldn’t resist them as they half dragged me to a clearing on the other side of the garden. In the center of the clearing was a tré about thirty feet across. A deep golden glow emanated from the three concentric circles. He waited for me in the center as the Gyrevex dropped me beside him. They wafted into smoke as a barrier rose up along the outer circle.

  “This is unfortunate. Like the ascendants. They must die to reestablish the connection to the hub. You must die to return my weapon. I wish there were another way, warrior.”

  I realized there was no point in trying to convince him otherwise. He had spent decades trapped in this place. His plan was set and there was no deviating from it. I stood before him, realizing how powerless I was. There was nothing I could do to defend myself. He extended an arm toward me as if signaling me to stop, and my world exploded. The center of the tré was bathed in golden light. I was suspended midair in the light. The first sensation was heat, unbearable heat, burning me inside and out. Then came the lancing pain. It felt as if my intestines were being ripped out inch by inch. I doubled over, screaming in agony. The pain travelled up my chest and into my throat, suffocating me. My screams were cut off as I struggled to breathe.

  “He is ready. Position him,” I heard Lucius say.

  My arms were grabbed and extended to the sides. I could see the Gyrevex out of the corner of my eyes but I couldn’t turn my head. Lucius had his arms raised and brought them both down to his sides. A bolt of energy hit the top of my head. The impact was staggering. I could feel the blood run down my eyes, nose, ears and the metallic taste filled my mouth. The vortex formed and flowed out of me. The Gyrevex were dissolved in seconds, but I remained in place, their job done.

  I could see the energy coalescing in front of Lucius. A sphere around two feet in diameter coruscating black, red and gold floated before him. The gold was tethered to me.

  “Still you try and thwart me, Owl?” said Lucius.

  With a downward slice of his hand he cut off the gold tether and it raced back into my body.

  “Pointless, old friend. He is going to die and I have the weapon,” he said

  He raised a hand and absorbed the sphere in front of him. The black and red energy entered his body and he arched his back as it enveloped him.

  “I am whole,” he said.

  The energy flared around him once and disappeared. A double-bladed short staff appeared in his hand the next moment, Maelstrom. My body remained suspended in the light as he drew closer to me. The crimson and black of Maelstrom radiated in his hand. His gray eyes now had flecks of crimson and black in the irises. He stepped toward my broken body. I felt the waves of chi wash over me as he closed the distance.

  “This was your purpose, warrior. You existed to bring this back to me,” he said as he lifted Maelstrom to my face. “And now your usefulness has ended.”

  He pulled back the staff and began to deliver the killing blow when the tré was converted into a crater, flinging me across the garden into the trees. Lucius leapt back, holding Maelstrom before him, bisecting the energy wave and landing on his feet untouched. A huge hammer rested in the center of what used to be the tré.

  “Not yet it hasn’t. My mistress has a use for him,” said a voice. “Go tend to him,” he said to the blue clad figures surrounding the crater.

  It was Roman.

  FORTY-FOUR

  “WHAT DID HE mean ‘gone’, Master?” said Mara.

  Sylk turned to the healer who was still adjusting the liquids in the other beds.

  “Bring him back,” said Sylk.

  “No, he needs to heal and he can’t take the blood while awake,” she said.

  “This is important,” said Sylk.

  She moved close to Sylk and poked his chest with her gnarled finger.<
br />
  “You may be the alpha. In here I am the last word. You heed?” she said, punctuating the end of each sentence with a poke.

  “I understand. In that case I need to go see someone,” said Sylk.

  “Go see whoever you need to see.” She went back to her vials. “Just don’t bring disturbance to this house,” she said added.

  Sylk stepped outside and made his way to the clearing with the tré. He needed to form a portal to the Watch. He was still fatigued from the ritual and the added power of the circle would help. He stepped into the circle and traced the symbols. A light silver trail followed his hands as they formed before him. A portal opened a few seconds later. He stepped through, leaving the plane of Rah Ven behind.

  In the trees a pair of eyes watched.

  Sylk appeared in the courtyard near the obelisk, which had been repaired but was still nonfunctional. He could see the reconstruction had begun. In one of the clearings he saw Rin and made his way over to him.

  “Karashihan, it’s good to see you,” said Rin.

  “Where’s the Keeper?”

  “I don’t keep track of his movements—”

  “Where is he?” said Sylk. He was growing weary of the manipulations.

  “What’s this about?” said Rin.

  “I can answer that — isn’t that why you came, Karashihan?” said the Keeper from behind them.

  Rin jumped back but Sylk remained unfazed as he turned to face the Keeper.

  “What happened to the warrior?” said Sylk “The syllabist said he was gone. Is he dead?”

  “Walk with me, Karashihan, we have much to discuss and these words are not for all ears,” said the Keeper as he headed off, staff in hand. Sylk caught up to the old man in a few strides.

  “I hear you are a pack leader now,” said the Keeper.

  Sylk remained silent.

  “Grawl will want to speak to you before you leave.”

  “Leave? Leave where?” said Sylk.

  “It would seem that the warrior has been taken to the lost triad,” said the Keeper.

  Sylk stopped midstride. “Impossible. That triad has been disconnected for over a hundred years. The energy expenditure required to open a portal there would be immense.”