by Aaron French
***
Sumiko, holding the arm of a servant, walked gingerly down the steps from the veranda and out into the garden. Its serenity had been restored save the blemish in the centre of the bench.
Kazuhiko, already standing at the bench, inclined his head the merest fraction to Sumiko. She blushed red and bowed as deeply as she could. Only a note from Mamoru had saved her life when Kazuhiko had recovered from her control, begging him to wait until this date. Beneath her kimono, almost her entire body was covered in bruises, and there was a blackened burn that looked like a rose the size of an open hand on her chest. It caused her abominable pain.
Sumiko knelt at the bench, looking with great concentration at the blemish. It was the first time she had seen it since the battle, almost six weeks ago. The imprint of an open hand had been pushed into the granite like it was clay, with every line and crease faithfully reproduced. In the centre, a black scar, matching in shape to the one between her breasts.
She reached out to touch it, but jerked her fingers back as she felt the unmistakable signature of embedded power. Now, she had none of her own, but she could recognise it when it was near. After a moment, she also recognised that it carried the scent of Mamoru.
She lowered her hand once more, this time spreading her fingers and trying to fit them into the pattern on the bench. She pulled away again. From within the palm print—but not from within the black flower—a slender crystal arose and hovered in the air by her head. It started to spin and became surrounded by shards of rainbow light—but the shards were being absorbed, not emitted. Sumiko sensed a presence building in the crystal, then felt it suddenly release.
“Hello, Sumiko,” said Mamoru from behind her. She spun around with a gasp, and Kazuhiko also let out a grunt of surprise. The old monk was kneeling on the veranda, at the top of the steps, looking well with a mischievous smile playing, as usual, around his lips. It was only when Sumiko moved towards him that she noticed his eyes did not follow her.
“Your Highness,” said Mamoru, bowing to a point slightly left of Kazuhiko. Sumiko looked over her shoulder and saw that the prince’s usual angry face had softened to a gentle bemusement.
“I must ask you both to forgive me, but we have all three been the playthings of a prophecy. When I succeeded my old Master, he passed the prophecy to me, and when I took you, Sumiko, as my apprentice, I knew the prophecy would end here. I had no choice but to neglect your training, daughter. I did what I could to provide you with other weapons more mundane, but I could teach you only the barest part of the knowledge of power. If the prophecy were to come true, you would acquire strength a thousand times that which you were taught, and such is what has happened.”
Sumiko raised a hand to cover her mouth, which had made an O of shock and surprise.
“The power that saw the pendant come to you was relying on you having power similar to my own. It was too late when it found out you did not. I had no choice but to wait until you decided to seek me out—to try and take my strength.”
Mamoru’s image turned slightly towards, presumably, where it thought Kazuhiko stood. The prince, looking embarrassed, discreetly shuffled sideways until he was where Mamoru’s eyes pointed.
“My lord. This woman is still of enormous value to you. Despite these unfortunate events, which were not of her doing, she still has extraordinary skills in diplomacy, analysis, and many other disciplines you may do ill without. If you can find it to trust her one last time, step back a pace and do not interfere. Otherwise, take this shard of crystal from the air and grind it under your heel. It will not harm you. Although the decision might.”
Kazuhiko looked thoughtful for a moment, his hand half-raised towards the spinning crystal. Then he looked at Sumiko. Her head was bowed, her hands flat on the ground before her. He hesitated a moment longer, then his hand dropped and he took a step back.
“You are most wise,” said Mamoru. “Sumiko. Rise. Step towards the crystal.”
The image paused while Sumiko got slowly to her feet, again with the help of the servant. She walked cautiously to stand before the spinning sliver of light.
“I ask only one thing of you,” the image of Mamoru said. “You must make no attempt to find me, and must suffer no other to search for me. If you cannot agree, ask Lord Kazuhiko to crush the crystal.”
Another pause.
“Then, daughter, take the crystal in your hands and receive what is rightfully yours.”
Sumiko caught her breath, then turned to the image of Mamoru, bowing deeply to it. Turning back, she cupped her hands around the crystal, and the essence of all that had been Muramo flooded into her.
About the author: Robert Harkess shares his writing time with his real-world job as an IT manager for a major ISP in the UK. This is his second appearance in an anthology, having also recently been placed in Escape Velocity. He lives just north of London with a wonderful wife and two attention-seeking cats, and blogs at robertharkess.co.uk
The Path of Li Xi
Aaron J. French
Li Xi traveled alone. Always, alone.
Across deserts and steppes, through forests and plains, along the coastal region where the sea waters stretched to the east.
Always, alone.
He was an old man now. Short, bald, bearded, paunchy, with a blue robe, a wooden staff, and a self-possessed walk. Square bamboo shoes protected his feet, and a leather satchel rode at his hip.
It was rumored he could walk on water.
He hadn’t walked on water—not really. He had merely plucked a twig off an olive tree, flicked it into the Yangzi, and navigated it to the other side using his feet.
He allowed the people to believe what they wished, though, for to will it otherwise would be against the Tao. And that would cause suffering. He learned this the way young men do, with women and gambling, money and sin. He had learned to despise himself, and to despise the world. But that was a long time ago.
Still, he thought about his life very much. Long hours of reflection, quiet mediation, and a turning inward of the will. Over time, he had come to understand that he was like the Huang He. It was this river, with its perennial floods, that most resembled his life. His youth was like its banks, holding fast against the inevitable overflow, but giving up entirely in the end. Each time the river flooded, he was washed away and eroded a little bit more, making him less resistant.
Making him more conscious.
He often reflected on his experiences.
***
Ten years ago in Chang’an, during the harvest season, he’d gone to the great city in order to pray at the Buddhist Temples. Afterwards, he had retired to the city’s night district, which was full of music, dancing, and girls.
The courtesans stalked through the crowd like royalty. Civil servants—the administrators, the Confucians—kept tabs on everyone in their detached manner. Eunuchs also wandered about, sticking together the way eunuchs do.
And there was Li Xi, quite out of place. Not a Confucian gentleman, not a Taoist wizard, not a eunuch, or even a general. Just a middle-aged man of minor repute.
One night he felt a strangeness in the air, a mystic, the Tao, like the sweet musky scent of a woman. It stirred him up, directed his will. He desired.
He slept with the first courtesan, then sat in her quarters drinking sake. He moved on to the next courtesan, followed by the next, and the next. He recited poetry to the girls, verses off the top of his head.
There were thirteen courtesans in attendance that night. Li Xi slept with all of them.
In the morning, he found himself alone in his room at the inn. The girls had all gone. He laughed, remembering the previous night, but then he noticed the empty space beside him. He realized there was no one around to share in his joy.
You fornicated thirteen times in a single night, said a voice in his head. Thirteen times with thirteen different women, and now you think you are powerful. But I beg you to look deeper.
So Li Xi looked deeper into hi
s inmost being, into the bottom of his eternal soul. There he noticed something peculiar, something that did not feel like power or love.
It felt like cold, hollow despair.
He left the room and went walking through the walled-up streets of Chang’an. Citizens, officials, soldiers, and gentleman hurried about. But Li Xi was too busy meditating to pay much attention. He had realized the triviality of his actions. His soul hungered, always hungered, and this he knew. Hunger was the reason for his spiritual quest. But the hunger was also a yawning chasm of empty despair. A chasm always aching to be filled. For it was the home of his true being, his true Self, his soul.
The previous night, he now realized, was just another attempt to fill up his chasm. He had done it before—with teachings, with gambling, with alcohol—and now he had done it again with fornication. He had put the courtesans in place of himself.
But he was not filled. He hadn’t experienced joy, oneness, or a yearning for the world. He felt only the hollow emptiness of his chasm.
He decided that women were not it; fornication was not it. Those things were distractions designed to keep the truly seeking person from finding. Here was another breaking away from his desires, a further erosion of himself, which lessened his resistance.
He left Chang’an the next day.
***
Whenever Li Xi came to a village, he visited the temple. He did not consider himself a Buddhist, did not follow the Eightfold Path, but the monks—like himself—were engaged in spiritual quest, so in that way they were similar.
One day, traveling beneath a cloudy sky, he came to the tiny village of Shou on the coast of the Eastern Sea. Waves, seagulls, and surf sounded in the distance. Fish smells pervaded the air.
Humping his old bones over a mossy hillock, he passed between a pair of carven bamboo pens holding sheep. Chickens and ducks plodded in the damp patch of land, around which spread many ramshackle huts. Towards the back of the village lay the raised stone steps of the temple.
A monk in a yellow robe approached him. Bald but bearded, with white, pulpy, pupil-less eyes. He held out his alms dish and Li Xi bowed, placing a single coin in the dish. The blind monk nodded in return, then disappeared among the huts.
As Li Xi’s foot landed on the first step, a clap of thunder echoed through the mountains. Surprised, he glanced up and saw the sky darkening to angry purple. Rain would soon come. He hoped to be in a dry place when it did.
The temple was carved from maple and redwood, resting placidly on its stone foundation, the red-green mountains rising behind it. Li Xi bowed customarily and passed below the arches.
The inside was spacious and quiet. Scrolls and draperies, whose characters delineated the Eightfold Path, hung from the walls. A shrine sat in the far corner, elevated on a wooden altar. A gold statue of Shakyamuni, the exalted Buddha, rested on the shrine.
Li Xi stepped into the center of the temple. Calmness came over him. Buddhist temples cultivated this feeling well. He was sinking into the calm when three monks entered through the rear entrance. After a period of bowing, the leanest monk stepped forward.
“Greetings, woodsman sage. May we welcome you to our village.”
Li Xi bowed again.
“Have you come to look upon the master,” the monk continued, “to view the Enlightened One?”
Li Xi straightened. “Enlightened One? What can this mean?”
The monk bowed deeply, almost apologetically. “I intend not to mislead,” he said. “The master has only recently awoken from his sleep. News is slow traveling along the Yangzi.”
“Can it be so?” Li Xi exclaimed. “Has Shakyamuni reincarnated? Has Buddha returned?”
The lean monk glanced over his shoulder, locking eyes with the slightly fatter monk. This one stepped forward and said, “Not exactly. But please, allow me to make a formal introduction. I am Sho Jiang.” He pointed to the leaner monk. “This is Zhu Qi. And that is my birth brother, Su Jiang.”
The three monks bowed simultaneously.
“And I am the great woodsman sage, Li Xi.”
The monks noticeably tensed at his name, and Sho Jiang, looking wide-eyed, said, “Li Xi, the Taoist sorcerer who walks on clouds, who crossed the Yangzi on a twig?”
The monks chuckled but Li Xi glowered at them. “I claim no responsibility for the rumor-mongering of others,” he said. “I am an old, albeit experienced, man. I’m only me and I can only be here at this moment. Besides, I’m more interested in hearing about your newly crowned Buddha.”
“You speak well,” said Zhu Qi, usurping the conversation from his fellow monk. He had a competitive way about him and a strong, forceful will. “But the master does not claim to be the Buddha returned.”
“Tell me,” Li Xi said.
“The master is our Bodhisattva here at the temple. Has been for many years. But he is old, and following a period of two months during which he meditated under an acacia tree and fasted, he awoke from his deathly sleep.”
“He fasted for two months?” Li Xi asked.
Zhu Qi nodded. “He’s started to eat again and he moves about now, but always he returns to the tree. There exists a permanent depression in the loam from the many hours he has spent there. He has left the fundamental emptiness of Mahayana and is now one with the Nirvana.”
“Why should I believe you?” Li Xi said.
The monks passed a smirk between them. “You needn’t believe us,” said Sho Jiang. “You can see for yourself.”
The monks turned in unison and headed out the back entrance. Intrigued, Li Xi followed.
Rain was sprinkling through the overhead branches, darkening the color of the leaves. A wind smelling of the ocean swept through the tree trunks. The monks led Li Xi along a path that wound through the woods, opening up on a clearing wherein a large towering acacia tree seemed to dominate the sky. Its bark was the color of honey, its flowers the color of snow.
Seated beneath it was a solitary man. Still, silent, unwavering. Raindrops pelted him from above, but he remained calm. He resembled the bronze statues caste of Shakyamuni that were spread about the land.
The monks dispersed to either side of him, getting into position. Zhu Qi stood to the left, Sho Jiang to the right; the quiet one, the one who was yet to look Li Xi in the eyes, stood back in the trees.
Li Xi felt something strange come over him. Suddenly he knew this man—this meditating Bodhisattva—was enlightened. He knew by the way time seemed to slow down within his energy field; by the softly radiating perfection of his features, of his physique; by the dim golden glow of his bald head.
“You may speak,” The Perfected One said, without moving, without opening his eyes. He had a voice like fragile silk.
Li Xi bowed. “I can see that you have found eternal peace, O Holy One. And I doubt your spiritual development no longer.”
“You doubted?”
“I confess that I did. With so many monks in yellow robes roaming the countryside, each possessed of a tale of spiritual awakening, it is hard not to be skeptical.”
“And how am I different?”
Li Xi thought for a moment, then said, “My intuition tells me so.”
The Perfected One’s face moved for the first time. “You listen to your intuition?”
“Yes. It speaks from within my soul. It is a divine voice.”
Now The Perfected One smiled broadly. “I too possess such a voice. It once spoke to me often; sometimes it goes silent; these days it says very little.”
“What is your name?” Li Xi asked.
His brow furrowed. “Name? Yes I recall such a word. I don’t recall what mine used to be. It, along with my physical body, was left behind in the world of illusions.”
“His name is Ami-Tahbah,” Sho Jiang said. “Though before his awakening he was known as Xin Wangdi.” Then, speaking to The Perfected One: “Before you stands an old Taoist sorcerer who goes by the name of Li Xi.”
“I recall that name,” said Ami-Tahbah. “It spurs a d
istant rattling in my mind. Ah, now I remember. You are the one about whom stories are uttered. Fantasy things, Mahayana things, like floating over the Yangzi on a twig and causing men to bruise with the slightest touch.”
Li Xi felt embarrassed. “You speak too highly of me, Your Holiness.”
A thunderclap rumbled in the distance, interrupting the conversation. The rain fell heavily, slapping against the leaves and branches. The white flowers of the acacia tree began to wilt.
Ami-Tahbah said, “Have you come to join the temple and to learn teachings, honorable Li Xi?”
“I am no student,” he replied. “Not even of a divine master, such as you.” And this was true. He did not mean it offensively, but he had learned long ago to distrust teachers. He followed his own path.
“Pity,” Ami-Tahbah said. “You would make a fine monk.”
Li Xi bowed. “I am humbly flattered by your offer.”
“And what about alms?” The Perfected One asked.
Li Xi rose. Something new stirred in him, something that was not reverence or admiration or awe. Something resembling suspicion.
In a burst of intuition, he realized Ami-Tahbah desired something of him. This realization shattered the spell under which he had been placed. The physique of The Perfected One suddenly appeared to age.
Li Xi felt a tremor of horror pass through him.
Was this a lie?
The wind gusted, thrashing the tree branches. The yellow robes of the monks fluttered out like pennants. Lightning flickered ominously in the cloud cover.
Ami-Tahbah opened his eyes.
Face him, admonished the voice of Li Xi’s intuition. He is not who he claims to be.
Li Xi faced the seated Bodhisattva, even when the other monks turned their heads away. In his eyes Li Xi glimpsed a peculiarity, something starkly opposed to the aura of peace he had initially observed. What dwelled in the eyes of Ami-Tahbah was wickedness.
