Path of the Divine

by Harmon Cooper

  “Do the birds in Lhasa generally know the names of its citizens?”

  “When they are written everywhere, yes.”

  “You can read?” I asked him.

  “Seriously? Just because I’m a bird doesn’t mean I didn’t go to school. I’ll have you know that I went to one of the finest schools in Lhasa, and yes, before you smirk at me, it was a birds only school. I have no problem with admitting that. Why would I go to school for people like you anyway?”

  “Just asking, Bird,” I said, showing him my palms.

  “Would you like to be called by the name of your species, Human?”

  “No, Nick is better. What would you prefer I call you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, zipping up into the air and spiraling back down.

  He stopped before me, flapping his wings slowly enough to keep himself in the air, so we could look at each other eye to eye for a moment. “If I allowed you to name me, to give me a human name, would you give me a good one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay.”

  “Um…” I thought for a moment. “How about Roger?”

  “Roger, Roger,” the bird said, circling around me once more. “Why that name?”

  I shrugged. “You just look like a Roger to me. I don’t know. I can think of other names too; it was just the first thing that came into my head.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There’s a cartoon that I watched as a kid, and there’s a character named Roger or at least I think his name was Roger. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe he wasn’t Roger.”

  “I will accept the name.”

  “Good.”

  The feathers on the back of his head flattened. “Quick, get down,” he said, divebombing into the brush to our right. I followed Roger into the brush, the twigs scratching me and tearing at my clothing as I moved deeper into the bramble.

  “You have to be quiet,” he said.

  “Okay,” I whispered to him, both of us watching the path in front of us.

  It took another few minutes, but eventually, a group of warriors came through, walking in the opposite direction that we had been going.

  Their armor was heavy, and from what I could see of them, which was very little, they were armed to the teeth. Roger took off, and for a moment I thought he’d left me stranded there, and anger swelled inside me at the thought that I’d been duped in the Kingdom of Lhasa yet again.

  But he quickly returned, landing by my side and letting me know that there were nine men, and to give it another couple of minutes before we continued on our way.

  So that’s what I did, waiting quietly for the armed men to pass. Once we were both sure they were gone, I got back on the trail with him.

  “Any idea who they were?”

  “They could be bandits, or a small armed militia. Or they’re treasure hunters,” Roger said.

  “Treasure hunters?”

  “The monastery I’m taking you to isn’t the only one around. There are dozens of them in these mountains, all dedicated to different interpretations of the Way of the Immortals. And these monasteries often hold treasures and precious objects.”

  “I see. And by ‘different interpretations,’ you mean different paths to take, right? A guy I knew back there, in Nagchu, told me a little bit about that stuff.”

  “He probably told you about the Path of the Divine, which is one of the more popular ways to practice.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s what he said,” I told the bird, recalling what Altan had explained to me. “He had some name for what level he’d reached as well, but he told me he was just a novice.”

  “As are most.” Roger lowered onto my shoulder. “You don’t mind if I sit here for a moment, do you?”

  “You can hang out on my shoulder as much as you’d like, as long as you don’t shit on me.”

  Roger made a sound with his throat. “What kind of bird do you take me for?”

  “A well-mannered one, that’s for sure.”

  “Without manners, what separates us from the other beasts?” he asked. “Anyway, back to the Way of the Immortals and its various paths. To be frank with you, I don’t really believe in the Way,” the tropical bird confessed, “but I do believe in reincarnation. There’s a very good chance that if I do the right thing, I’ll be born in the body of a human such as yourself. If I’m lucky, I may even be born into the Overworld.”

  “So you’re helping me for karmic reasons?”

  “Heavens, no, I’m helping you so I can get your dagger,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m quite serious about acquiring that weapon, and I’ll be most unhappy if you turn your back on me at the last moment. You wouldn’t do something like that to a helpless little bird like me, would you?”

  “For some reason, I don’t think you’re that helpless. The blade is yours.”

  “Good, good.” Roger cleared his throat. “Now, you asked me to tell you more about the religion of the land. Aside from the reincarnation aspects—which I’ve read about in several of the texts written by the famous hermit practitioners—I’m by no means an expert. But I can at least explain a few of the various paths to you.”

  “Just a little more information would go a long way.”

  “Perhaps you could give me another piece of that bread of yours, I would like that.”

  “Sure.” I reached into my pocket and tore off a piece, holding it over my shoulder as I walked, Roger taking it from me.

  “It’s good bread, Nick; slaves know how to make the best bread.”

  “The Way of the Immortals is the text, right?” I asked him after he finished his bread.

  “It is a combination of texts and oral transmission, just a straightforward way to condense it all into one body of work. It is truly numerous, with new writings and treatises coming out all the time. Now, there are secret paths, and no, I don’t know anything about them. But they do exist.”

  “Okay.”

  “The most popular interpretation, as you’ve already heard, is the Path of the Divine. It is a middle road approach to enlightenment and immortality. It isn’t that different from the Path of Cultivation, which focuses on moving energy from an early age, treating one’s body as a garden.”

  “So the Path of Cultivation isn’t as interested in immortality, or enlightenment?”

  “All the paths are interested in immortality and enlightenment; they just frame things differently. I mentioned the Path of the Divine along with the Path of Cultivation because they share similar aspects. A lower impact, middle of the road approach.”

  “I see,” I told him as we ducked under a tree with low hanging branches, the limbs covered in moss.

  “There’s also the Path of Sudden Enlightenment, but finding a beneficiary of this path is rare. It is generally unknown how information can be transferred this way because most of the knowledge of this path has been lost, or stolen,” he said. “I would say this one is somewhat related to the Path of Possession, which is how some of the more powerful practitioners have gained their power.”

  “How’s that?”

  “By killing someone at a higher level,” Roger said, “and absorbing their abilities. The Path of Possession has been exploited, most notably by the plantation owners and their noble guards, if you could call them noble.”

  I thought of Sona for a moment and the powers that she exhibited. Had she killed someone to gain them? While I knew it was entirely possible, part of me thought that this couldn’t be true, that there was something different about her.

  But I was probably just holding on to something, latching on to a notion that wasn’t based in reality.

  “Let’s see, which one am I missing?” Roger asked himself, tightening his grip on my shoulder. “Divine, Cultivation, Sudden Enlightenment, Possession. Oh, that’s right. The Path of Divine Madness. This is one of the stranger paths, one that not much is known about. To start on it, you must have practiced one of the others and reached certain stages already to realize w
hat it means to be divinely mad.”

  “As in crazy, or angry? ‘Mad’ can mean both things.”

  “Crazy. Not many have gone down this path, but those that have usually are outcasts of society, people who have studied the Way of the Immortals and discovered its flaws; people who are on the verge of transcending the system in the first place. Anyway, that’s all I know about it. These various paths are all acknowledged in the body of work that is the Way of the Immortals. The only part I believe in is the karma part.”

  “Which is why you’re helping me.”

  “I’m helping you because I want that dagger.”

  I laughed. “You’re my kind of people, Roger.”

  “I’m a bird.”

  Chapter Twelve: Refuge

  “Well, this is it,” Roger said, once we reached the monastery. “Do you still want me to take those steps with you?”

  “I’ve got it figured out from here,” I told him, looking up toward the entrance. The steps were lined with statues of snow lions, each with a different face, blue prayer flags strung between them forming a makeshift railing.

  “Ahem,” Roger said, landing on one of the lion statues, his turquoise feathers flattening.

  “Right, you want this dagger.”

  He glanced away from me, no longer able to make eye contact with me. “Let me guess, you aren’t going to give it to me, are you?”

  I’d never seen a bird with an apprehensive look on his face, but then again, I’d never spoken to a bird either. And I felt for Roger in that moment; I could tell that he had been tricked by someone before.

  “I always keep my word,” I told him, taking my only weapon out of the sheath. “It’s yours.”

  I set the blade on the first step of the temple in an almost symbolic gesture.

  “You’re really going to give it to me?” he asked, fluttering down to the blade. Roger looked up at me.

  “That was our agreement.”

  “You know, if I ever see those friends of yours, the ones that you lost, I’ll let them know that I met you. What were their names again?”

  “Bobby, Hugo, and Tom.”

  Roger nodded. “Bobby was the schoolteacher; Hugo was the soldier; and Tom was the guy that was supposed to get married, but who got dropped into the Sea of Lhasa. Did I get all that right?”

  “You sure did.” I started to turn away and stopped. “If you see a guy named Evan, be sure to peck his eyes out.”

  “That’s the one that betrayed you, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I can’t promise anything, but now that I have this dagger, maybe I’ll be able to stab him in the heart if I see him.” Roger wrapped his talons around a leather cord looped through the hilt of the blade.

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to lift that?”

  Rather than answer me, he started flapping his wings, raising the dagger into the air. “It’s been nice knowing you, Nick.”

  “Same, Roger.”

  “I can’t wait to tell some of my bird friends the name you’ve given me. I may use it from now on. It sounds better than my own name.”

  “Glad to hear,” I said as he took off.

  “Farewell, Nick.”

  “See you, Roger.”

  I watched him fly down the steps, the glint of the dagger following behind the friendly bird. Once I could no longer see him, I started up the stairs, my stomach grumbling.

  We had walked for hours, exhausting our food supply, and I knew that I was totally at the mercy of the monks in this temple.

  After another ten minutes of walking up steps, I reached an enormous wooden door, four or five times my height.

  I was just about to knock when I noticed the smaller door to the right, this one with a cover over it that resembled the face of a dragon. I went to the smaller door instead and checked the handle, letting myself in.

  There was an ancient smell to the place, one of incense and cold stone.

  I passed through a vestibule into what I assumed was the main prayer room, a seated deity at the front, the light coming in from a stained-glass window that had been worked into the mural on the ceiling. Several monks sat before the main deity, but it was the man who faced them, the clear leader of the monastery, who saw me first.

  “May I help you?” he asked, looking up from a large book.

  The man was incredibly old, the wrinkles on his face pulling at his jowls. His head was shaved aside from a long ponytail at the back, which was braided and draped over his shoulder. The man was hunched forward, his back permanently misaligned from poring over religious texts.

  I cleared my throat, noticing the echo of the sound in the chamber. “I’m an outsider.”

  “Clearly,” the older monk said, to the soft laughter of the monks seated before him.

  “I come here seeking refuge,” I told him. “I was told by a… dakini? Am I saying that word correctly?”

  The older monk shut his leather-bound tome, kicking up a cloud of dust. “A dakini spoke to you?”

  “Yes, and she told me to come to a monastery, and I just so happened to find this one.”

  “There hasn’t been a dakini in these parts for decades.”

  “To be honest with you, I don’t even know what a dakini is aside from a guardian angel, or something similar. I was just trying to escape.”

  “Escape?”

  I nodded, taking another step forward. “As you’ve already noticed, I’m not from here. I’m from a different world, and as soon as I came here I was attacked by a bunch of things, I slew an evil spirit apparently, and then I was sold off as a slave, and escaped to the mountains. I’m giving you the abridged version here, and normally I wouldn’t be this forthcoming with what has happened to me, but I figured someone here would…”

  The older monk took a deep breath. “I suppose we’ll have to start the trials.”

  I gave him a funny look. “Did you say trials?”

  “Well, if you are who you say you are, we have to test it.” The old monk started coughing, and once he finished he continued: “But it’s too late to begin the trial now. I will have Lhandon show you to a room where you can rest for the night.”

  “Is there any chance I can get some food?”

  The old monk scoffed at my request. “The kitchen is closed for the evening. Lhandon?”

  “Yes, Exonerated One?” a chubby monk asked. He sat at the back of the group, and he happened to be the only one looking over his shoulder at me when he was called upon.

  “See our guest to one of the empty chambers.”

  “As you wish, Exonerated One.”

  “You said you were an outsider,” the hefty monk said after we’d left the main prayer room. His weight made it so he had to waddle some, the only monk in the room that was obese. “Where were you from, again?”

  “You haven’t heard of where I’m from.”

  “I don’t know,” he said as we walked down a narrow corridor, candles lighting the way. “I am well-versed in the Kingdom of Lhasa, its cities, and the other Kingdoms as well, including the Island Kingdoms of Jonang and Tsirang. I find those most fascinating.”

  “What was your name again?”

  “Lhandon. And yours?”

  “Nick.”

  “I’ve never heard a name like that before.”

  “People keep telling me that. Ever heard of Massachusetts?”

  The portly monk attempted to pronounce the word and gave up. “What a strange name for a city. The first part is easy to pronounce, the second part is very odd on the tongue. Don’t you agree?”

  “It isn’t a city, it is a state. I live in a city called Worcester, which is spelled differently than it sounds.”

  “Worcester, huh? A fascinating word as well.”

  We came to a set of stairs. Grunting, Lhandon took the steps slowly, nodding as he did so. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “That I’m fat.”

&
nbsp; “That’s the least of my concerns.”

  “Really? Because by now, people usually have commented on it.” He stopped, turning to me. “So go ahead, get it out of your system.”

  “I’m not here to fat shame you,” I told him.

  “Fat shame…” He smoothed his hand over his bald head, adjusting the small ponytail he had at the back of the skull. “I can’t say I have heard those two words used together before, but they make sense. That’s what people do to me, they fat shame me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Lhandon.”

  “Well, it’s not your fault, obviously.”

  “Doesn’t matter; no one likes to be teased.”

  “I’m used to it by now,” he said as he continued up the stairs. Once we reached the next floor, he headed off to the right, his finger in the air as he counted rooms. “It should be around here; I cleaned the room a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I know that he said that there was no food, but would it be possible to get a bite to eat? I’ve been walking all day and I’m very hungry.”

  “I…” Lhandon stopped, biting his lip for a moment as he turned to me again. “I might be able to help you out. But the Exonerated One doesn’t like it when any of the monks disobey his orders.”

  “I won’t tell him.”

  “That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know what’s going on in his monastery.”

  “The Exonerated One, huh? Strange title.”

  Lhandon nodded. “His full title is Boldoh the Exonerated One, and he’s called this because he killed his brother in a land dispute over a hundred and twenty years ago.”

  “He’s over a hundred years old?”

  “He’s close to one hundred and fifty years old,” Lhandon explained. “He has practiced the Way of the Immortals since then and has increased the longevity of his life. That’s how he got his name, actually. He was imprisoned after killing his sibling and dedicated nearly a decade to studying the text. Eventually, he started helping other prisoners find the way, teaching them the Path of the Divine. Once he was released, he begged his way across the kingdom, cobbling together enough money to build this monastery, and in doing so he was given this name.”