by Aaron French
Li Xi allowed his feelings of terror and disappointment to flow like the tide. He let go of them, let them become birds. To cling to such feelings would only cause disease.
Ami-Tahbah wouldn’t let go of his resentment. This was a man who harbored it, nurtured it, loved it, allowed it to grow. This wasn’t a man who had found peace. This man suffered in the throes of Mahayana, not perfected; he was not enlightened; he was not a Buddha.
Li Xi suddenly wanted to be far away from the temple.
“You can pay tribute,” Ami-Tahbah continued.
Li Xi decided that the easiest way to untangle himself from this situation was to pay. And so he bowed deeply, reaching into his coat to withdraw a loop of thousand cash coins.
“I would gladly contribute to this temple—site of the awakened Buddha.”
He saw the man’s face crinkle with satisfaction. It was this final act—this wanton display of pride—that convinced Li Xi of the falsehood of Ami-Tahbah.
Zhu Qi stepped forward to collect the tribute, saying nothing when Li Xi handed him the string of coins. Zhu bowed, then stepped back into position.
“You’ve chosen almsgiving,” said Ami-Tahbah, “and for that the temple thanks you. But tell me, is there not more that you could give?”
“My deepest apologies,” Li Xi replied, “but that is all I can afford.”
Ami-Tahbah was silent. Then he said, “There is one thing you could give, which does not require coinage.”
There was a faint echo of intrigue, but Li Xi was quick to silence it. He wanted nothing to do with this silly little man. He would give him no more coins. He turned to leave.
As if reading his thoughts, Ami-Tahbah called, “What if I truly am the Buddha returned, and you continue along the path having wasted this opportunity?”
Li Xi stopped. He listened for the voice of his intuition, but the voice was silent. “What do you propose?” he asked.
Ami-Tahbah grinned. “Reverence. Genuflection. Worship.”
Li Xi was surprised to feel the seedlings of anger, of rebellion, of defiance, rising up from his soul. He had not felt these things in a long time. And yet this tiny man, this false Buddha, had drawn them out again.
Li Xi did not like that.
He then understood this was a test. It was how the Tao worked. It enjoyed challenging the truly seeking person. Giving him a run for his coin.
Li Xi approached Ami-Tahbah with a firm will.
The false Buddha grinned like a snake, displaying a forked tongue and beady eyes. “I see you are going to use your brain,” he said, “rather than your feelings.”
The other monks glanced at each other.
“You may kiss me here,” Ami-Tahbah said, moving his hand for the first time, pointing at the middle of his forehead, “to show your obedience.”
“Very well,” Li Xi said, stooping low to reach the man. As he did, a flash of light caught his attention—a darting batwing arc of steel, and the lightning-quick movement of Ami-Tahbah’s arm.
Li Xi bolted upright, pulling away, just as the dagger passed before his face. Ami-Tahbah looked surprised, sitting there holding his dagger. Li Xi seized the opportunity, thrusting forth his arm to grab Ami-Tahbah around the neck. The little man made a choking noise and was hauled to his feet. Then an abrupt moment passed in which their eyes locked and everything that was at stake—all the karmic associations attached to this—was transmitted, so that each knew the other man’s place, his role, and his destiny.
Li Xi harnessed his qi and snapped his fingers, collapsing Ami-Tahbah’s windpipe as effortlessly as he might a dirt clod. The false Buddha released a high-pitched whine and crumbled into the grass. Thunderclaps boomed as the rain fell more intensely, and acacia flowers started dropping to the ground.
The death took less than five seconds.
Immediately the other monks sprang into action. They shouted and cried, wails of anguish and rage for their master.
Sho Jiang and Zhu Qi flanked him, the latter pulling his own dagger. They came with brute force, slashing and punching, but Li Xi easily manipulated their movements to his advantage, drawing the energy path of Zhu Qi’s dagger into the soft flesh of Sho Jiang.
The fat monk opened his eyes wide and clutched his waist before falling to his knees in a puddle of blood.
Zhu Qi let go of the dagger and screamed. He turned to Li Xi with eyes full of hatred and began clawing at him, hissing and spitting and emitting a kind of screech. But Li Xi avoided his attacks, weaving in and out with liquid fluidity, shooting a two-finger jab into his Adam’s apple. The monk hiccuped helplessly, sucking on nonexistent air, until he too collapsed, and white acacia flowers dropped on him from above.
Li Xi turned to the final monk, the silent one. For the first time their eyes made contact, and then the monk was hurtling toward him.
Li Xi sidestepped, moving out of his path. As he did, he brought up his hand and chopped the back of the monk’s neck, striking the spinal cord. He booted his hindquarters, thrusting him face-first into the grass. It was not long before that monk, too, was dead.
Li Xi stood quietly as the white flowers of the acacia swirled around him. Rain flew diagonally. Thunder and lightning ruled the sky. It had all happened so fast.
The old man felt a pang of remorse. He had not wished to harm anyone, least of all a trio of monks following The Eightfold Path. The other man, the false Buddha, he didn’t care so much about; that man could stay dead.
He was getting wet, which wasn’t good because damp made one susceptible to illness. He had to get back into the temple if he didn’t want to catch cold, but before leaving, he retrieved his thousand cash from the dead man. The way he saw it, he could make better use of it.
He turned and started up the path toward the temple, but stopped suddenly when a bizarre shape formed in the foliage. He looked closer and saw it was the face of a monk. Then he noticed more monks, dozens of them standing silently in the trees, watching him.
This startled him, but he continued on to the temple, entering through the rear entrance. More monks awaited him. He was so glad to be out of the rain that he didn’t bother feeling threatened. He felt only the quiet peace of the temple.
Against one wall, the monks had unfurled a scroll. Li Xi walked over and mused on the characters silently. Then he frowned. This was not what he had intended.
He spun around to face the monks who had now gotten down on their knees. So many yellow robes, with more surrounding the temple and peering in from the rain, their faces solemn, expectant, regarding Li Xi in earnest.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I am not the Shakyamuni. Your former master—the one lying dead in the grass—is not the Shakyamuni. He was a fraud, an imposter, just another simple man. Like myself.”
The monks blinked unknowingly. So in order to make his point, Li Xi stalked over to the sacred altar where the bronze statue of The Perfected One gleamed goldly, and dashed the idol to the floor. It shattered into a thousand pieces.
A horrified gasp swept through the monks.
Li Xi pointed to the scroll. “That prophecy cannot and will not be fulfilled, and do any of you know why?”
They glanced at him expectantly, still in shock from the destruction of their sacred shrine. Now Li Xi understood that this was another one of his waking moments. On this day, here at this temple, he was letting go of more resistance; he was waking up to the one true reality a little bit more.
He imparted this newfound understanding to the monks: “Your prophecy claims that The Perfected One will return, that Shakyamuni will be reborn—returned to you, his devout students, to lead you once again. But I assure you this prophecy is false.”
The monks’ eyes grew wider. Some darkened with irritation and rage. One man ventured, “What do you mean? How can the prophecy be false? It was foretold by Shakyamuni himself.”
Li Xi smiled. He did not think the monk foolish for believing. “I have realized something this day,” he said. “Killing yo
ur master has granted me vision. The Perfected One does not exist. Not now, not ever. Yet The Perfected One has always existed, and will always exist. You, the loyal monks, wish to escape suffering and reach Nirvana, but you are also seeking the one who is the Buddha. Well I have floated down the river of time to be here this day to tell you there is no Buddha.” He gestured at the shattered statue then repeated himself: “There is no Buddha. Stop searching.”
He allowed the words to hang inside the temple. Rain drummed on the roof.
Then he picked his way through the scattered shards to the exit. On his way out he knocked over the stand holding the scroll of prophecy. It clattered as it struck the floor.
He felt very pleased, very alive, very awake. As he descended the temple steps in the rain, on his way to nowhere in particular, he glanced over his shoulder. Just as he expected, the monks were busy cleaning up the mess. He smiled, then disappeared into the surrounding landscape.
About the author: Aaron J. French has appeared in many publications, including Abandoned Towers, The Absent Willow Review, Short-Story.Me!, Golden Visions Magazine, and issue #7 of Black Ink Horror. He also has stories in the following anthologies: Ruthless: An Extreme Horror Anthology with introduction by Bentley Little; Pellucid Lunacy edited by Michael Bailey; M is for Monster compiled by John Prescott; 2013: The Aftermath by Pill Hill Press; and Potter’s Field 4 by Sam’s Dot Publishing.
Where the White Lotus Grows
John R. Fultz
Smoke and blood filled the evening sky. Above the rippling expanse of summer grasses, phantoms rushed and mingled with the soot of dying fires. They circled down upon the charred remains of Anfai’s village like carrion birds. Unlike the vultures that would come in the morning to feast on unburied flesh, these spirits came to drink the souls of those scattered among the blackened timbers.
Anfai had lain in a ditch, in the shadow of a fallen log, since the height of the morning, when the fires first began to dance across the thatched roofs of her clan. She held life, precious and warm, against her bosom. In the cacophony of screams and crackling of flames, nobody had heard the baby’s crying, even when the men who reeked of blood thundered down the road on their black horses and passed nearby the ditch. Her infant son slept now, wrapped inside her threadbare cloak. She carried him as she left the shelter of the log and climbed up to stand on the unpaved road. The first thing she noticed, bathed in the molten glow of the setting sun, was a white flame that walked like a man.
It floated through the tall green grasses, this pale flame, but did not burn them. Phantoms glided past Anfai’s head, drawn to the soul-feast. She did not know the medicine to turn them away from her dead village, to clear a passage for the souls of her kinsmen into the afterworld. So she stared at the white flame as it grew nearer, and clutched her baby tightly against her chest.
It was a man. In the purpled gloom of evening his flowing robe, the color of sunwashed bone, had produced the illusion of a man-sized flame. But she saw now that he was only a man, and certainly not a fellow survivor, for the men of her village wore tunics of russet or indigo. White was the color of death. So perhaps this was Death himself, taken on the form of a handsome man, lean of jaw and with a shaven head. Yet, she wondered, why would Death bother to shave his head? His eyes were dark, glistening almonds, much like her own, but his broad forehead and tanned skin spoke of distant places.
She stood unafraid, too exhausted to fear him, as the wanderer emerged from the grasses and stood before her on the brown strip of road. Did he see the swirling phantoms of evening, as she did? He bowed to her, the gesture of a more civilized realm, and she saw the moon rising over his shoulder. He carried nothing, no blade or staff, not even a canteen. Yet the stains of much travel showed along the frayed hem of his robe. His feet were bare.
She knew nothing to say to him, even if he had truly been Death. Her world had ended this day, and there was only the little one now. And smoke, and blood, and this white-garbed stranger with his gentle smile.
She fainted, but did not hit the ground. The stranger caught her in quick, strong arms.
The touch of cool water brought her senses back. She lay near the bank of the bubbling stream that ran some ways south of the doomed village, and the smiling stranger leaned over her. The baby lay nearby, awake and cooing in apparent contentment. Had the stranger carried them both all this way? She grabbed up the infant and turned to face him.
“My name is Kantoh,” he said. He offered her more of the water he had drawn from the stream. He had bent a broad, green leaf into the shape of a bowl. His voice was soft, flavored with an accent she could not place. She took the leaf-bowl and drank from it, her left arm still wrapped tightly about the infant.
“He is fine,” said Kantoh. “I fed him some crushed berries. He is a strong boy.” Again he smiled, a kindly enigma.
Broken moonlight fell across the swift stream, and the trilling songs of crickets filled the darkness. A few trees grew crookedly alongside the water, and above their masses of six-pointed leaves the stars glittered in a thousand colors. The blood and smoke had been wiped clean from the atmosphere, but the faint stench of death lingered still to mingle with the scent of night-blooming jasmine.
“They are all dead,” she said.
Wordlessly, he offered a handful of the berries he’d picked. Realizing her own hunger, she stuffed them into her mouth. There had been no food this day, while she lay curled in the shadow of slaughter.
“Tell me,” he said. It was not a demand; more an empathetic suggestion.
“Sons of the Spear,” she said. “Bandits from the western hills. There was no tribute for them this season. The Lords have taken all our able-bodied men as soldiers. So the harvest went slowly... and the Sons would not wait. They took lives and women instead.”
Kantoh nodded. “But they did not take you.”
Anfai put the baby to her breast. It suckled the warm flow of her life, and she tried not to think about the phantoms in the village suckling a more ethereal sustenance.
“I hid,” she said, as if making confession. “Under a log.” At last, tears found their way down her cheeks, as she watched the baby feed.
“You did nothing wrong,” said the stranger. “Because of you, two lives were saved.”
“Where did you come from?” she asked him. The baby finished, so she held it to her shoulder.
“Far away,” said Kantoh. “If you are still hungry, I can find more for you to eat.”
Anfai shook her head. “You have done more than most would for a stranger.”
“If you tell me your name,” said Kantoh, “we will no longer be strangers.”
She told him. “And this is Ond.” The baby belched, and giggled.
“Do you have relatives nearby?” he asked. “Someplace to go?”
“An uncle,” she said. “In the village called Five Trees. Many days walk from here.”
Kantoh nodded. “Sleep now,” he said. “None will harm you. Tomorrow I will accompany you to Five Trees.”
“Why?” she asked, staring into his strangely compassionate eyes. “Why do you help me?”
“I am a priest,” he said.
“Where is your temple, then?”
“It is... no longer in this world.”
“Oh,” she said. “I am sorry.”
He smiled, and she saw now the holiness gleaming in his face. “We have both lost,” he said. “Yet we have found each other.”
She spread her cloak along the ground and lay down. Kantoh sat with crossed legs, his back against the bole of a tree. Before she could thank him, she drifted off to sleep. When she awoke to the first rays of a golden sun, he sat there still, like an idol carved from stone, having moved not at all during the night.
She built a fire from twigs and dried leaves, using the stick-rubbing method her father taught her years ago, before dying from the silver fever. The village had survived that plague, never expecting that its true death would come later at the end of a lawless
spear. Kantoh wandered along the creekside, returning with an array of edible roots and plants. Only then did she remember that she had no pot or pan to cook with, not even a bowl in which to boil water. She might find such things in the ruined village, but she did not want to go there and wander among the grisly remains of her people. She knew her soul might not bear such an experience, and she had to stay strong for little Ond. So she ate Kantoh’s pickings raw, which the priest seemed accustomed to doing. Then she washed the baby in the chilly stream and drank her fill. Kantoh wove a crude canteen for her using leaves and reeds, so she might carry a bit of water. They set out for the distant hills, and the remote river valley where lay Five Trees.
***
Beyond the green foothills rose a range of mountains, ghostly giants with pointed skulls and crowns of heavy cloud. Trees grew thicker here than on the plain, and the dusty track that served as a road went winding upward into the highlands. Sometimes she let Kantoh carry the baby, since Ond seemed to grow heavier as the land grew steeper. Three days he’d walked with her, gathering food for her and the little one from impossible places, picking fruits and pulling roots where there should not be any, finding hidden springs and water sources by some arcane means at which she dared not guess. The farther they traveled together, the more a mystery he became. He drank and ate very little, his foraging given almost exclusively to the mother and her son. At night, he did not sleep, but sat in that stony, cross-legged position, sometimes with eyes closed, other times open.
Today a herd of triple-horned bon’ting ambled toward the travelers from the hillside where they had grazed all morning. The docile beasts walked alongside them for a while, shaggy pelts smelling of earth and musk. Anfai’s legs and feet ached. When they topped the first of the great foothills, she saw the mountain road winding into the deep valleys ahead. There would be at least another day of traveling. She hoped her uncle was still alive and well, or she would find no sanctuary in Five Trees; but she did not tell Kantoh that. His help was all she had between her and the murderous world into which she had brought this innocent soul. She prayed silently to thank the Dreaming Ones for bringing the priest along when she so desperately needed him.
