Warriors of the Way-Pentalogy

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  “Wait, Sylk is here as well?” asked Devin.

  “I will send Master Sylk to address your questions,” she answered as she left the room.

  “Guess she didn’t like your tone of voice,” said Raquel.

  “No, not the tone, the informality,” said Devin. “Titles and ranks are important to the Mikai.”

  “I don’t like that they have been watching me. I don’t like being spied on,” said Raquel. “Especially not by them.”

  “You know that old saying about keeping friends close and enemies closer?” asked Devin as he sensed around the room. The five Mikai were still in the room with them. “The Mikai take it a step further. Anyone they think can be an enemy they keep under observation. For the Mikai, it’s a compliment.”

  “A compliment, really?”

  “It means they consider you a worthy opponent. Someone powerful enough to threaten them, gunslinger.” He said the last word with a smile.

  Raquel looked at him, hard. “Don’t, just don’t,” she said.

  “I wasn’t implying… I’m sorry,” said Devin.

  “I don’t like the title and it makes me twitchy, okay?” said Raquel.

  A figure came to the doorway. “Your father didn’t like the title either.” It was Sylk.

  “You knew my father?” said Raquel. “I doubt that.”

  “I knew someone close to him. He and I weren’t friends,” said Sylk. “Or enemies.”

  “Something is happening within the Order and I need to find Meja,” said Devin.

  “The Order is corrupt. You of all people should know this. Why do you need your sister?” asked Sylk.

  “She may have the pieces of the puzzle I need.”

  “She is helping Dante at the moment. Have you seen her lately?” asked Sylk. “She has changed somewhat.”

  “I noticed her energy signature increased from the last time I saw her,” said Devin. “She almost read like a Samadhi.”

  “She has surpassed that by now,” said Sylk. “Keep that in mind when you see her next. In the meantime, make yourselves comfortable: it will be a few hours before they are done.”

  “We’re just supposed to wait here while she finishes whatever she is doing?” asked Raquel. “Are you kidding me?”

  “You are looking for the blade dancer. I can tell you he is dead,” said Sylk. “The one who possesses the second focus, Snow, is currently lost to me. Samir, our syllabist who we may need for the last part of the ritual, is somewhere on the Akashic plane, which is infinite.”

  “How did you know about Rory…?”

  Sylk held up a hand and continued.

  “A Samadhi named Wheel may be behind all of this and I can’t locate him,” said Sylk. “It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

  “Wheel,” said Devin. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “Everything, nothing, I don’t know—and what’s worse is that even if I could locate him, his power is probably greater than everyone on this plane, including the both of you,” said Sylk.

  “Excuse me?” said Devin. “He is only a Samadhi. He can’t be that powerful. What you are describing sounds like the…the First.”

  “If I am right, he was able to use a glyph of inversion to interrupt a ritual,” said Sylk. “He surpassed the Samadhi state long ago.”

  “Impossible,” whispered Devin. “Only Lucius had that kind of power.”

  “It would appear that now so does he,” said Sylk.

  “This is where I ask for the translation,” said Raquel.

  Devin sat down with a stunned look on his face. “The translation is simple, we wait,” he said. “If half of what he said is true we are going to need a lot of help.”

  “We wait?” said Raquel.

  “Yes, you wait because our best chance lies with Dante and his weapon—if the ritual doesn’t kill him first, that is. Unless you have something better to do for the Black Lotus who would betray and kill you sooner than you could draw your weapons and fire, gunslinger,” said Sylk.

  Raquel glared at Sylk as he left the room.

  “This is deeper than I imagined,” said Devin. “I thought the Order was rotting from within, but this puts it in a different context.”

  “Then Monique must know what’s going on and who this Wheel is,” said Raquel. “Send me back to the hub and I’ll find out.”

  “They asked us to wait,” he said.

  “You wait. Open a portal and send me back or I’m going to shoot the five Mikai standing there like statues, and then won’t they be pissed?” she answered.

  “I can open a timed portal keyed to your chi—it will give you a two-hour window,” he said. “After two hours it closes and you are stuck there.”

  “Two hours will be plenty of time to find her and ask some questions,” she said.

  “She never did well with interrogations. You may just have to shoot her.”

  “I can do that too,” she said as she manifested her guns. “Do it.”

  Devin opened a portal and Raquel stepped through. None of the five Mikai moved.

  **********

  Snow manifested his weapons as the Black Lotus closed in on him. The tambo glowed orange as a portal opened next to him, allowing Raquel to step into the room.

  “You?” he said. “You are the one I was looking for.”

  “You found me,” she said as she took in the scene. “Looks like it’s going to get bloody in here. What’s going on, Monique?”

  Ten of the Black Lotus surrounded them with crossbows aimed.

  “Did you find Rory?” asked Monique as she stepped closer to the door. “Or did you fail at that, too, like everything else?”

  Raquel raised her guns. “Rory is dead, but I’m guessing you knew that, didn’t you?” she said. “What was the plan? Frame me for it somehow and make it look like I killed him? Start a war?”

  “Close, but I don’t have time for that now. I’m working on a simpler plan,” replied Monique. “Kill them both, and get his weapons and her body.”

  Monique left the room and more members of the Black Lotus immediately blocked the doorway.

  “Well, that answered one question, bitch,” said Raquel under her breath. They were in one of the smaller training areas. The Black Lotus put their crossbows away and drew their blades as the closed on the pair.

  “Can you open a portal or doorway or something we can use?” she asked.

  Snow shook his head. “Too dangerous to do while so many around,” he said. “I would be open to attack.”

  Raquel cursed under her breath. “They have their orders and they don’t negotiate,” she said.

  “I am prepared. You wish to pursue their captain, the woman?”

  “Yes, I need to get to her. Can you handle this if I thin this group out for you?” asked Raquel.

  Snow nodded. “Leave me one or two.”

  “Don’t get cut by these blades,” she said as she shot the first Lotus who leaped at her. She ducked under the next attack and shot a second Lotus. Seeing her guns, the Black Lotus retreated. They grabbed their crossbows and began firing. Raquel stood in the center of a storm of arrows, dodging and firing as one by one the Black Lotus fell to the floor. She didn’t see anything or anyone. Her senses were attuned to the disturbances in the air. She moved a spilt second before a bolt would penetrate her body, sending a bullet back to drop her current attacker. When she was done, eleven bodies lay on the ground. Her guns disappeared as she crouched down on the floor beside Snow. Several arrow bolts protruded from his chest.

  “Goddammit, no,” she said. “What did I tell you?”

  Snow coughed as he gave a short laugh. “You warned against getting cut” —he coughed blood as he spoke—“but you said nothing about getting shot.”

  She tore a piece of his robe and started to grab the arrow bolt.

  “It’s too late, gunslinger, the poison is in my blood,” he said. “Come, I have something to give you.”

  Raquel drew close and Snow closed his ha
nds around hers. In his hands, he held the Fangs. “Take them and stop her, stop them,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she replied. “This is not part of my fight.”

  She tried to remove her hands but his grip was iron, holding her in place. He held her until the Fangs disappeared, absorbed by her. Then he let go, his strength gone.

  He looked off to the side. “I have found one who is worthy of them, Master Wei,” he whispered and closed his eyes. With one last gasp, the poison took his life.

  Raquel looked down at her hands in disbelief. “What have you done?”

  She stood up, still looking down at her hands, still unbelieving. “I told you it wasn’t my fight, you stupid idiot. Why, why would you do this?”

  She made a mental note of the training area and manifested her guns. Looking down at her wrist, she noted the time. Ninety minutes, plenty of time to end her, she thought. She ran out the exit Monique had used. In the corridors, she eliminated all of the Black Lotus she encountered.

  You wanted a war. I’m going to burn your Lotus to the ground.

  She headed for the main quarters of the Black Lotus and saw Monique surrounded by five of the Black Lotus elite. When she entered the large room, the door slammed shut behind her, casting the room into darkness.

  “You didn’t think I was going to make this easy for you, I hope?” said Monique. She turned to the five guards around her as she unsheathed her weapon. “This one is mine. I will take her down. No matter what happens to me, you deliver her alive to him. She has the Fangs.” The Lotus elite fanned out, giving Monique room, but keeping Raquel in their sights.

  “Deliver me to whom?” asked Raquel. “You’re working with Wheel?”

  “How do you know that name?” she asked, surprised. “It doesn’t matter. There is nothing you can do to stop him.”

  “Then it’s true,” said Raquel. “Is it just you or the whole council?”

  “The council? Those backward fossils don’t know the meaning of change,” said Monique. “They want to keep their power intact, not realizing that this whole place, this Order, is rotting around them.”

  “And you’re going to do what? Bring in a brand new era?” asked Raquel. The orange light of her enhanced guns flared and bounced off the black marble walls, bringing light into the darkness of the space.

  “I am going to make the Black Lotus what it is supposed to be, a force to be feared,” she said. “Without a council of addle-brained old men to stop me.”

  “Wheel promised you this? In exchange for what?”

  Monique twisted her blade and separated a second blade from the first. Both blades gave off a bluish light as she rotated them in her hands.

  “You’re a blade-dancer?” said Raquel, taking a step back.

  “Who do you think taught Rory?” replied Monique.

  “Aren’t you full of surprises,” said Raquel under her breath.

  Raquel, with both guns raised, began shooting. Monique dropped to the ground and rolled to the side, throwing one of her blades at Raquel. Falling on her back, she dodged the blade and let it fly past her. When she stood, Monique had a blade in each hand again.

  “Blade-dancers never lose their blades,” said Monique with a smile as she advanced and slashed. Raquel back-flipped out of the attack and landed in a crouch. That was too close, she thought. Then she felt the burning in her leg. Shit, not good. One of the blades had cut her as she had tried to avoid the attack. She placed her guns together and they merged, forming one larger gun.

  “We rarely miss, too,” said Monique. “The poison will finish you before you can fire that handcannon. Besides, your chi isn’t strong enough to both fire that gun and deal with the poison.”

  Raquel could feel the fire running through her body. Beginning to lose feeling in my leg, poison is fast. Six shots, all I need are six shots.

  “I thought you needed me alive?” said Raquel.

  “Recently dead works too,” said Monique. “Give it up. Raquel, you can’t—” A bullet hole six inches across blossomed in her chest. It punched through the steel of her blades, her ribs and heart along with part of her spine and lungs as it blasted through her body and into the wall behind her, leaving a small crater. Monique fell to her knees, looking down at her chest as she dropped her ruined blades —she looked up at Raquel in disbelief as she fell forward.

  “Don’t tell me what I can’t,” said Raquel.

  The Lotus elite were trained to be the best and they lived up to their reputation. Monique’s body had not hit the floor before they were in motion. They moved fast, just not fast enough. Raquel dropped the two closest to her and dodged a slash from behind by rolling forward. In the roll, she turned and took down the one behind her. Three down, three to go.

  Two attacked simultaneously and jumped at her. She dove forward and under the attack. Turning mid-jump, she managed to shoot one but missed the other. She only had one shot left. Her breath came in ragged gasps. The two Lotus elite closed on her. The one on her left lunged with his blade. She parried the lunge with a circular block and trapped his arm. She kept going with the momentum and finished the circle. This caused her attacker to twist in front of her body and face the remaining Lotus. Driving with her legs, she pushed and closed the distance as she pressed herself against them both and fired.

  They fell to the floor, lifeless. Her gun vanished along with all sense of balance as she fell next to the Lotus she had just killed. Her reflexes allowed her to break her fall and not shatter her face by getting her hands under her in time. For a few seconds, she just lay there.

  Get up, get up, get up! You are not going to die here. Get back to the portal.

  She pulled herself up to her feet and made for the exit. She limped back to the training area and to the portal. She fell a few times. The poison had progressed to the point that she had to drag her wounded leg. She turned one corner and had a moment of panic when the door she expected to be there wasn’t. She turned around and saw the training area. She looked down at her watch. Five minutes. I can make it in five minutes. She made for the portal and fell forward. The world went black for a few moments. She regained consciousness, shook her head and gathered her strength. She dragged herself on the floor, getting closer and closer. Only a few feet left. She looked up and saw the portal close as her world went black.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  SAMIR FOUND HIMSELF in a brightly lit and endless corridor of pink marble. He continued speaking the words of unmaking. The poison from Raja’s blade had stopped attacking his body, but now he was lost. The door he had entered through was gone.

  This is not an exit. I will have to make one. How did someone do this to the Akashic Records?

  He had managed to catch the poison on time despite Raja’s prediction of death. The words of unmaking were a double-edged sword. He had to be careful to attack the poison and not his body or these would be the last words he would utter. It took some time but he managed to remove the poison from his system.

  If the words work here then I should be able to make a portal.

  He looked around the corridor and only saw the columns lining the walls of pink marble. He made the gestures with his hands and a portal formed. It lasted a split second before collapsing.

  The words work but portals don’t; curious. That can only mean one thing.

  He removed a pen from his pocket and dropped it on the floor. Turning his back on the pen, he began walking down the corridor. After twenty minutes, he saw the pen a few feet in front of him.

  I’m inside of a loop. A portal can’t function in here because it folds in on itself. If I unmake this reality, there is a good chance of unmaking myself with it.

  He picked up the pen and tapped it on the wall as he thought.

  What did Calabi and Yau say about the planes?

  He could hear his instructors’ voices as he thought back to his classes as an apprentice syllabist.

  The interstices between the planes exist because they must. The same way music
is only music because of the rests and pauses between the notes. Without these spaces, it is all just noise. If you can learn to harness the interstices of your words, both spoken and thought, then you can attain the highest level.

  “Use the interstices,” he said to himself. “The spaces in the space.”

  He began making gestures and speaking words of unmaking. The first portal failed as before. He tried again with no success. He did again, but this time he interlaced the words of unmaking in the gestures. A portal unlike any other formed before him.

  Can’t be worse than this place, he thought, and stepped in.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE SOUND OF birds filled the garden. The cherry blossoms swayed slowly in the breeze as the shadow of Lucius stepped free from the spent stasis sphere. He looked over the still lake and sat down by its edge in a meditation pose. After a few moments, he disappeared.

  He reappeared in an obsidian hallway. He looked at the glyph-covered door and placed his hand on it. The glyphs flared to life and vanished along with the door.

  “That didn’t take very long,” said Rael with a roll of his eyes. “I thought you forgot about me.”

  “I never forget, or forgive,” said Lucius. “You know this.”

  “This is not a revelation,” said Rael as he coughed.

  “You’ve been poisoned by a blood Kriya? That is creative,” said Lucius. “This was the handiwork of Sylk, from the looks of it and this place. I thought the Kriyas gone by now.”

  Lucius narrowed his eyes and looked at Rael. He traced some glyphs in the air. They remained in the air, silver symbols hanging in space. With one more gesture, they floated over to Rael and entered his body.

  “That should take care of your contamination.”

  Rael stretched his arms. “Feeling better already,” he said.

  Lucius looked around the room. “This looks comfortable,” he said. “Did you enjoy your stay here?”