The cat-man finally got to his feet, helping the little girl back onto his shoulders.
I’d completely ignored the crowd around me, but now that I was a little bit closer to them I could hear the crowd screaming for my death, spitting, slurring, trying to hit me with their mugs of alcohol, whatever the hell it was called.
The cat started to run toward me and I took a batter’s position, both fists shaking as I prepared to knock the living hell out of him.
I would have to swing with an upward trajectory to hopefully get him in the chin, or possibly the throat. If I cut straight into it, I would hit him in the abdomen, which may hurt, but it would leave me vulnerable to one of his claws.
And I was just about to do it too, hit one out of the damn park, when the little girl launched herself off his shoulders while still holding onto the chain.
I tried to swat at her, only for her to whip around me, and pull me face-first into the ground with the chain, the cat-man skidding to a halt in front of me and bringing a knee to the ground, driving his big fists into my back, a throbbing pain echoing through my core.
I was done.
I let go of the mace, both hands wide now as someone dragged me off the field, as I tried to catch my breath, as the crowd booed. And in my haze, I swear that I saw Sona standing there, a scarf covering her mouth, a disappointed look on her face.
“Sona…” I whispered, reaching out to her. “Sona…”
Chapter Nine: Introduction to the Paths
“Wake up, it’s time we start our day,” Altan said to me.
A week had passed since I had my ass handed to me by the girl and her big cat-man.
I had discovered several things over the last week, one of them being that Altan was a kind man, one who promised to tell me more about this power that I may or may not have possessed once I was ready.
The other thing I’d discovered was that there were no answers here or anywhere.
No one knew who I was, what I was, where my friends were, or where I was from for that matter. To them, I was just a new slave who had failed to make it to the ranks of Madame Mabel’s elite guard.
I rolled out of bed and took a bowl of milk from Altan.
It was a spiced milk, one meant to help someone wake up. It sort of reminded me of chai, except for the burning in my throat that seemed to linger after I drank it.
There was bread on the table, raw carrots, and a bowl of boiled quail eggs, which was something Altan served every day for breakfast.
The only way to escape would be to run to the mountains, that had become clear to me over the week, and Altan had already been over the rules of what happened to runaway slaves.
There was no trial, simply death.
And I wasn’t ready to die, which meant that the timing had to be right.
And then there was revenge.
I hadn’t forgotten that Evan had betrayed me, leaving me to the bandits when he could have vouched for me.
Has it really been a week?
The only reason I even knew it had been that long was because I remembered going to bed seven times, the sun setting and rising seven times, so a week, even though it sort of felt like an extended blur.
And some of the haziness came from what we were harvesting.
Madame Mabel’s vast plantations contained a variety of vegetables, some of which I’d never seen before, but Altan and I were in the narcotics zone, harvesting what was essentially opium, but which locals called “lotus.”
Lotus excreted some type of neurochemical when it was consumed, that much I understood, but no matter how careful I was, picking the flowers always caused a small amount to get on my skin, even if I wore long gloves.
I already hated the stuff.
But I did appreciate the fact that it made time fly, even if it caused my thoughts to blur, making me feel lethargic.
“It’s going to be a good night tonight,” Altan said, a smile on his face.
“Why’s that?”
“Members of the elite guard are marrying some of our daughters today; it’s always a time for celebration.”
“Our daughters?” I asked him as I sipped more of the milk.
“Madame Mabel doesn’t want us to have family units; she wants us all to be one large unit, so people have children and those children grow to become slaves, and the more beautiful daughters often get chosen by the elite guard.”
“You didn’t mention that before,” I said, recalling that many of the slaves I’d seen had similar features.
“You never asked.”
“How do they prevent inbreeding?”
“They don’t.”
“Do you…?”
He shook his head. “I do not. Not all of us are like them; some of us seek higher forms of being.”
“You keep mentioning that,” I told him as I made my way over to the table and sat down, going for a piece of bread.
“Yes, but I don’t think you are ready to hear about it,” he said as he sat across from me.
“It has been a week; I haven’t shown you any reason not to tell me.”
“True, and you have proven to be a hard worker, not as hard as some of the slaves who were born here, but you work in a different way, a smarter way.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told him as I bit into a piece of bread.
“You should. But I guess I keep hinting at it, so I can tell you some of it now. Although it does get a little more complicated than what I’m about to tell you.”
“Naturally.”
“I’m a practitioner of what’s known as the Way of the Immortals,” Altan said, in the way one would make a big confession. He paused, waiting for me to comment.
“I’m sorry, Altan, I really don’t know what that is.”
He chuckled. “You keep saying you’re an outsider, and you keep giving me reasons to believe you. But there’s no such thing as an outsider in Lhasa, everyone is from somewhere.”
“We’ve already been over this,” I started to tell him.
“I know, you claim to be from Massachusetts, and for some reason, no one, including the elders, have heard of a place called Massachusetts.”
“You asked them?”
“Of course I did.”
“I’m flattered.”
Altan smiled. “Don’t be.”
“Go on, you were telling me about being a practitioner of the Way of the Immortals.”
“Yes,” he said, tearing apart his piece of bread. “It is an ancient art, and while some of the older generations practice it, many continually fail at adhering to its various paths. You would be surprised how watered-down a path to enlightenment can become once it is exploited by those in power.”
“Yes, I’ve seen similar things.”
“I’m sure you have, in Massachusetts,” he said, slowly eating a piece of his bread.
“It’s common everywhere in my world.”
“There are various paths, but the path I have chosen, which is likely the most orthodox, is known as the Path of the Divine. There are various stages, from Broken Sword to Spineless Book, but I haven’t made it past the novice level, Broken Sword.”
“Why?” I asked, feeling the suffering behind Altan’s eyes. It was clear to me that this meant a great deal to him, and not reaching a higher stage had affected his life.
I don’t know how I sensed all that in that brief look that he gave me, but I did, and all I could do was bite my lip and nod, letting him continue.
“Because of all of this,” he finally said, waving his hand around the room. While there was a proper quarter for slaves, Altan had volunteered his own home, saying that I needed some help after my terrible defeat.
“The plantation?”
He nodded. “I was born a slave and worked my way up to what I am now, an overseer of slaves with my own home, but a slave nonetheless.” Altan lowered his voice. “Please don’t take this as me complaining; I’m content with what I am.”
“Of all the people h
ere, it’s not going to be me who rats you out.”
It was on the tip of my tongue now, asking Altan to help me escape. But I held back. Maybe one day I would ask him, but it was better that he trusted me for the time being, and that I understood more about this world before I took that sort of risk.
“I didn’t think so, after all, you’re from Massachusetts.”
I smiled at him, appreciating that he was trying to humor me even though it was clear he didn’t believe what I was telling him, that I was truly from a different world. And who could blame him?
“This is my karma,” he finally said. “I didn’t cultivate enough in a previous life, and now I am a slave. So I’m trying to cultivate it in this lifetime.”
“By doing things like bringing me in, correct?”
“I consider this a karmic boon, so sure. But to be clear, I brought you in because I truly believed that you need help, and the people who saw you attack the slave trader said that you have the Power. I want to see it for myself.”
“But I already lost the fight,” I told him.
“You don’t know how to cultivate the Power, so it makes sense you would lose the fight. Sona, and any of Madame Mabel’s guard, don’t appreciate how the Power can be cultivated. Their abilities were practically handed to them.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, if you ask me, I don’t believe you’re here because of karma; I believe you’re here because this world has a system of slavery that seems to be pretty terrible, at least from what I have seen.”
“One day I will advance upon the Path of the Divine, and move up to the next level, Wheel with a Rusty Axle, and I’ll move past this place. If not this lifetime, then the next.”
“That’s what it’s called?” I asked him. “Wheel with a Rusty Axle?”
He laughed. “It’s not the strangest name for one of the stages, you know. An even stranger one would be the teacher stage, which is known as Wolf Stalking a Lantern, or possibly the master stage, Hollow Peacock.”
“What are all the stages?”
“Well, the novice stage is known as Broken Sword. The next stage, the cultivator stage, is known as Wheel with a Rusty Axle. Then there is the advanced student, Ink in the Sea. A teacher, Wolf Stalking a Lantern. This is followed by a master, or Hollow Peacock, then a divine master, or Spineless Book.”
“Strange names.”
“They are meant to be humbling, to remind the practitioner that being humble generates good karma. The final stage is a reborn student, known as a Golden One. It is called this because the student has been reborn by choice and must restart all the stages. But that’s enough for now,” Altan said, standing, wiping his hands. “I feel as if I’ve said too much.”
“No, it’s fine, your secret is safe with me.”
“It doesn’t matter if it is or not; no one would believe that I told you these things. Besides, the Way of the Immortals isn’t illegal here on the plantation, at least not anymore. That’s another advantage of the rank I have achieved here. No one will believe that I said something like this, especially if it was coming from an outsider like you. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Now come, we need to start the harvest. We’ll have to check the drying buds later, to see how many are ready for tonight. Chung will flow freely, and there will be fresh lotus for anyone interested.”
“Sounds like a real party.”
“That it is,” he said with a chuckle. “But if I were you, Nick, I would enjoy tonight, because it is one of two celebrations we get per year. Expect debauchery, fighting, sex, anything you can imagine. But may I make a suggestion?”
“Please do.”
“I don’t quite understand how you have come to possess the Power, something that I myself do not possess even if I’ve gone through the initial stages of cultivating it.”
“I told you before, I don’t really know what it is, and it just comes over me. Who knows if it’s actually this ‘Power’ you keep referring to.”
Altan waved my statement away. “Well, just in case it is, I would suggest staying along the path of the pious, and avoiding the loose lips and loose fists that these marrying parties usually kick up. Just my advice.”
“I will keep that in mind,” I told him as I ate another piece of bread.
“Good. I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.”
I watched him step away from the table, a calm look on his face.
Altan was a good man, and it was too bad that we were going to have to part ways soon.
Chapter Ten: Dark Hazel Blur
The chung flowed freely.
There was a literal fountain of it, people dipping mugs made of ram horns into the brew, toasting, singing, pulling each other away from the fountain to speak privately.
All the daughters that were of age were on a raised platform, their siblings beneath them, waving at their sisters.
I stood at the back of the crowd, observing, waiting for everyone to get good and wasted before I made my move.
I held a mug of chung just to blend in, casually sipping on it, staying as far away from the lotus as I could. The stuff wasn’t unlike the opioid epidemic that had swept through New England, wasting lives, crushing dreams, making the time pass.
I could see it here, in some of the revelers’ eyes, the haunting sorrow of addiction.
I recalled Altan pointing at one of the infirmaries not far from the slave camp, telling me that was where many of them went to recover, and truth be told, to die. As slaves, we were forbidden to use lotus, aside from celebrations such as this.
And as often happened when drugs were handed out for free, most of the slaves were using.
The lotus was set up across from the fountain of chung on a variety of tables raised about ten inches above the ground, allowing a person to smoke it, snort it, eat it or rub some onto their skin. Topless slave women sat around the lotus tables, kissing at the encouragement of the men, letting the men suck their nipples.
It was an odd thing to witness, but I was starting to get used to seeing things that made no sense in Lhasa. And oddly enough, I was feeling clear at the moment, likely because we’d only worked a half-day and the chemicals from the lotus hadn’t seeped into my skin.
I wore slave clothes now, a loose tunic and baggy pants with deep pockets. I had some bread stuffed in one pocket, diced carrots in the other. This would at least give me some food after I made my move, giving me time to figure out my next step.
And I was just about to set my mug down when a masked woman with white hair approached me, placing a hand on my cheek.
“Hello,” I told her.
The woman brought her hand back and slapped me, looking at me over her shoulder as she walked away.
“See you by the big tent,” I heard her say, or at least I thought she said this before she disappeared back into the crowd.
Many of the women wore masks, that or scarves covering the bottom halves of their faces like Sona had on when she punched me.
There was something instantly mysterious about the way the Lhasan women covered up, even if some of their goods were on display, and a few were a little more aggressive, like the one who had slapped me.
Figuring it wouldn’t hurt, I finished the rest of my chung, which was bitter, but strong enough to warm my gut.
Aside from the party, it was a calm night, reminding me of a late summer evening. Under normal circumstances, I would have enjoyed a night like this, but I really wasn’t able to appreciate it.
It was time to act.
Checking for Altan, I began to back away, toward a large tent that had been erected for the main ceremonies. I slipped around the side of the big tent to find a guard standing there, his eyes instantly narrowing at me.
“Leaving the party early, eh?” he asked.
“It isn’t really my scene,” I told him.
“Is that so?”
“It is,” I said, taking a step back. He was only one guard, but he did have a sword, and while
I might have made it around him, I would risk losing a leg in doing so.
Rather than stick around any longer, I began to turn away from the man, just as a dagger pressed through the front of his throat. The guard took a step forward, choking on his own blood, and fell face-first onto the ground.
I dropped onto my belly as dozens of armed men descended upon the wedding party. One came close enough to me that he almost stepped on my hand, the man completely focused on getting to the main event, not noticing that I was still alive.
And once he was gone, once I saw that I was in the clear, I crawled over to the man who had just been stabbed in the neck, trying to pull his sword from its sheathe.
I decided to go with his dagger instead, realizing that something as large as a sword would get in my way.
But it could also be useful…
I managed to get the dagger out of his neck, still debating as the fight broke out behind me as to what I should do with the sword.
The truth was, I’d never even held a sword, aside from a wooden one, but I figured it would be worth a shot, so I tried to turn the man over and unsheathed his weapon, now straddling him.
And just as I managed to get the sword out another man tackled me, or maybe it was one of the attacking soldiers, I really couldn’t tell in the dark.
All I knew was that the man was groaning a few seconds later, that I had instinctively driven the blade through his stomach, fatally injuring him.
My first kill…
This thought resonated inside me for a moment as I staggered to my feet, bloodied sword in one hand, dagger in the other.
I almost bolted for the mountains and even took a few steps away from both the bodies before I decided to stop, returning to the soldier who had been stabbed in the throat, working as quickly as I could to unbuckle his sheath.
I tried not to look at the man that I’d personally stabbed, tuned out the sounds of agony behind me, the terrible shadows appearing once some of the fires were put out, the clank of blades, women screaming, utter pandemonium.
I got the sheath and its belt around my waist, buckled it shut and stabbed the sword in, keeping the dagger in my hand as I ran as fast as I could, the larger blade beating against my leg.
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