“No speaking,” the Exonerated One chastised the younger monk. The old man took a meandering step closer to me, eyeing what I’d written. “I thought you didn’t know this language?”
“I don’t,” I told him. “I just did what you told me to do.”
“In that case, and just to make sure you are not trying to be clever with me, write ‘Gyal.’”
“I will try,” I told him, looking at the parchment again.
Rather than try to control what I was doing, I simply loosened my grip on the quill, letting my hand take over. Soon I had a symbol that looked like nothing I’d ever seen before.
It was almost like a reverse square root sign with the bottom of the letter Z at the end, a circle beneath the house that was created by the top of the lines.
“He wrote it,” the young monk announced to those in the lineup. “He wrote it!”
There was some chatter until the Exonerated One banged his cane against the stone. “Silence! There will be no speculation,” he told the group, glaring at the young monk. “This is just the beginning of the test; anyone who has seen some of the forbidden manuscripts can write these characters.”
“But I haven’t seen those…” I started to tell him.
“Are you familiar with rebirth or any other concept of reincarnation?”
“Yes, we have something like that in my world.”
The Exonerated One grinned at me. “It’s very strange to hear someone call the world their own, but if that’s how you must refer to it, that’s fine for now. So you are then familiar with the concept of reincarnation, correct?”
“Yes, in my world it is a Buddhist concept. You die, and you are reincarnated based on the things that you did during your life, the karma that you cultivated. That’s about all I know about it, aside from the circle of life and death, and a few other details. I wasn’t a practicing Buddhist or anything.”
“I can’t speak of this religion of your world, but I can tell you that is a similar concept to what we believe here. Maybe a former version of yourself was alive and well in Lhasa, and this former self studied the language.”
“I’m sorry, I find that hard to believe.”
“Yet you can write ancient words that many of the monks here struggle with…”
“I’m just letting my hand do the writing, I assure you.”
“Let’s try one more runic test before we move on. I want you to trace the rune for the character ‘Ma.’ I don’t want you to trace the newer version; I want you to trace the ancient one. Even a dog who paid enough attention to his owner would know the newer version, considering it is everywhere.” “I’ll try,” I told him, dipping the quill back in the ink.
I glanced at the first two characters I’d made; part of me thought this was all a big scam, that the Exonerated One was simply playing along, that he knew I was making up characters.
Because that’s what it felt like.
This was not my language; my hand was doing the writing, not my brain.
Nevertheless, I closed my eyes and placed the tip of the quill on the parchment, and once I opened them I saw what looked almost like the pi symbol with the letter C cutting through its left downward stroke.
The Exonerated One instructed the boy monk to turn the parchment in his direction, so he could get an even better look at it. Once he’d examined it for a moment the elderly man looked up at me, smiling, his jowls lifting as he did so.
“This is very impressive,” he finally said, “especially for someone who claims to not know the language. But this is just the start. Next will be combat.”
Chapter Fourteen: Banished
The Exonerated One dropped his cane and lifted his fists, tensing them once. His eyes rolled into the back of his head for a moment, a wave of energy rolling over him.
“You want me to fight you?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Lhandon, not able to find him at the back of the line of monks.
“It’s part of the trial,” the old man explained, cracking his knuckles.
“Fighting isn’t really my thing.”
“You claim to have slain an evil spirit, and from what Lhandon has already told me, you escaped the confines of slavery. You’re young, you have some muscle. Surely you are able to fight a man of my age.”
I knew this was a set-up of sorts. There was no way that the frail older monk was serious.
And hearing that Lhandon told him about my past made me wonder what else the chubby monk had shared. I didn’t know how long I’d be at the monastery, but maybe it was better for me to keep my mouth shut going forward…
“I can’t fight you,” I told him.
“Nonsense.”
A slap sent me flying backward, the wind knocked out of me once I hit the pavement.
What the…
I looked up at the older monk, who had been standing several feet away from me.
There was no way he could have moved that fast.
“Holy shit, you’re fast,” I said as I caught my breath.
“Are you now convinced that I’m a worthy opponent?”
I got to my feet, another slap sending me tumbling backwards again.
“How about now?” The Exonerated One asked.
I rolled to my side, slowly pressing myself off the ground. “It’s not that; I just have no reason to fight you.”
“You’ve come to the monastery I founded seeking refuge, and you are clearly interested in the Way of the Immortals.”
“I’m not interested in the Way. It has sort of been sprung on me.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t interested.”
“I’m here because of a dakini.”
A few of the monks standing to my left grumbled under their breaths.
“Let him speak,” the Exonerated One said. “He is my opponent, and it’s important he be allowed to say what he likes.”
“I’m…” I shook my head. There really was no way I was going to get out of this without fighting the old man.
After another deep breath in, I lifted my fists.
“Let’s just get it over with,” I told myself as I approached him.
Smack!
I was sent to the ground again, winded, pain radiating through the side of my face.
“If you plan to fight me, do so with conviction,” he said.
Rather than say anything else, I charged the man, planning to tackle him.
I didn’t even see him step aside.
I simply found myself with a face full of pavement, narrowly avoiding knocking my teeth out due to my arm stopping my fall. The Exonerated One laughed, and after he was finished, all the monks laughed as well.
It sounded weird as hell, like a call and response, and it was starting to piss me off.
Getting back to my feet, I brought my fists to the ready, noticing an energy coiling in my stomach.
“Yes,” the elderly man said, a light behind his eyes. “That’s what I wanted to see.”
I swung my fist at him and punched through the air, the old man now standing off to my left.
“I know you’re faster than that, Nick the Outsider.”
I tried to follow up with an elbow and another punch, only for him to chop my shoulders, making my knees buckle.
This attack triggered something, and as he tried to deliver a kick which would have seriously taken my head off, I slid forward on my knees, leaning my neck back, avoiding his attack.
“Yes!” the Exonerated One shouted. “There it is. There’s the Power.”
He brought his foot down; I rolled out of the way just in time, air kicking up from a crater in the pavement.
“Careful, Exonerated One!” one of his best-ranked monks cried.
“This is my fight!” the old man said as he ran forward, ready to deliver a chop.
It took me a moment to adjust to how slow he moved.
In the time it took him to reach me, I could have run around the monastery twice and still protected myself from his attack.
> How is this possible? I thought, watching my arms come up, fists turn toward me as I absorbed his chop, an energy radiating through me and forcing him to stumble backward.
The Exonerated One gasped.
Everything was normal again, a slight breeze rippling the monk’s clothing, dust settling, his throat quivering.
Silence stretched between us.
His eye twitched as if something had come over him. The Exonerated One appeared behind me attempting to deliver a fist into my lower back, which I blocked by whipping around, my movement cutting a half-moon in the pavement.
He threw a few rapid punches, but my arms were in the right place after each attack, blocking him from landing a blow.
More punches, no pain whatsoever, just an intense focus that was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It was just a few moments later that I noticed something else about my current surroundings that sent a chill through my spine.
We both floated now, the Exonerated One delivering his blows, tiring, my arms naturally moving into position to block each of his attacks.
And just when it seemed like he was going to stop, he brought both hands back and pushed forth a half-sphere of energy that triggered a bolt of lightning.
I hit the ground hard, a shockwave moving through me and exiting through my feet.
I saw smoke billowing off my body once I managed to open my eyes; I could smell my own burning flesh.
Fuck…
I lay on my back now, looking up at the deep blue sky, trying to stay awake.
The monks started to appear around me.
I was hoisted up, my body still writhing as I was carried away.
I awoke in complete darkness.
The room smelled earthy, and as I pressed off a mat on the ground, I tried to adjust to the pitch-black space.
There was no adjusting here.
It was as if I had been placed into a closet after being blindfolded. I even checked my face to see if there was something preventing me from seeing.
Nothing whatsoever.
And no restraints either. I made my way to the wall and began carefully navigating the room, and was startled when my foot touched an iron bowl. I reached down and placed my hand inside the bowl, bringing my fingers to my nose.
Shit.
Literally.
It was a goddamn chamber pot, and while there wasn’t any excrement in it, there had been before and it hadn’t been cleaned very thoroughly.
Am I in jail? I wondered as I found my way back to the cot. And for what? The Exonerated One had asked me to fight him, not the other way around. What was the meaning of this?
I plopped back down onto the bed, my feet on the floor as I tried to think this through. I hadn’t found a door during my examination of the room, and from what I could feel, the walls were all made of stone.
Panic rose in my heart.
It felt like I had been sealed in a tomb, and this made me wonder just how high the ceiling was. I got to my feet and jumped with my hands out.
Nothing aside from the echo of my own feet landing on the pavement.
I started pacing, getting lost in the small space, the fact that I wasn’t able to see only making matters worse. It was like I was buried in a tomb deep beneath the soil.
My heart rate picked up; I could feel my heart thrumming in my chest, could feel a tenseness spreading through me, could hear…
My own heartbeat.
It was then that I realized just how quiet this dark place was, absolutely no sound aside from my ticker, my sandaled feet every time I took a step, my own short breaths.
“Breathe,” I whispered to myself, my first deep breath in causing my stomach to tremble as I exhaled.
I didn’t know the first thing about true meditation, but I knew that it dealt with breathing, just like yoga.
So that’s what I focused on.
I didn’t feel any calmer with each breath in, but I was able to slow my heartbeat some.
This feeling of momentary bliss didn’t last long. Soon I was panicking again, screaming at the top of my lungs.
“Can anyone hear me!? Please! Can anyone hear me!?”
No response. I screamed again and again until my voice grew hoarse.
How long had I been sealed in this chamber? I suddenly felt cold, hungry, my fear again boiling over me, weighing heavy on my soul.
“Just breathe,” I said again, hoping that verbalizing would help.
It didn’t. The panic continued to move over me in waves until I felt weak, until I felt as if I were…
One with the darkness.
Yes.
Each breath in solidified this new thought.
The dark was my life force, the air powering my lungs, oxygenating my blood.
“You can get through this,” I whispered to myself.
I took a seat, just breathing in the darkness now, imagining it as a purple energy entering through my nostrils, down to my lungs, spreading through my system. I could feel my veins pulsing now, could visualize my heart, my brain, the oxygen reaching the tips of my fingers.
Deep breaths, Nick.
I followed the voice at the back of my head until I returned to Massachusetts, to the place I rented outside of Worcester. I looked up at the old house I was renting a room in, waved to my neighbors down the street as they passed by in their car, glanced in the direction of the package store two blocks away.
I wanted to go inside but I couldn’t.
With each step forward I moved away from the home, the image starting to waver as I found myself at Tom’s bachelor party, the portal opening up, all of us slipping in.
The sea dragon rose out of the darkness, snarling, water dripping off its scales as it lowered its head to me, its angry eyes locking onto me.
I was full-on trembling now as I took in the image.
I was determined to fight through it.
Rather than run, I turned my palm over, noticing I now held a sword unlike any weapon I’d ever seen before, with a blade made of fire.
I could feel the energy radiating off it as I brought the blade up and charged the dragon.
It started to open its mouth, and suddenly, I was running from the boar, up a tree, taking refuge until the branches formed into a woman.
There were angry ghosts swelling above me, taking turns attacking the woman. Deciding to protect her, I launched into the air, propelled forward by a force I’d never experienced before, my flaming sword cutting through one of the ghosts, whose form evaporated as she screamed in my face.
Two of the ghosts dove through me, and as they came out the other side I spun, taking off both of their heads.
I was suddenly in the tent with the two sisters, Kiba and Karzi.
One had her leg wrapped around me as she moved up and down; the other was dipping her nipples into my mouth, begging me to suck them, squirming with glee once I did.
I opened my eyes and…
Nothing changed.
Karzi was still on top of me, Kiba kissing me as she ran her hand down my chest.
Startled, I pressed Karzi away and sat up, both of them cowering into the darkened corner.
They were gone a moment later, their forms shattering into a million tiny pieces that turned to a dark liquid once the pieces hit the ground. The liquid swelled over to me, warming my skin as it made its way to my mouth and my nostrils.
It entered my body in the form of a dark purple breath, again spreading through my system, my organs reappearing to me in my mind’s eye.
I was onto something.
I didn’t know what the hell it was, but it was definitely something worth exploring.
I was just starting to take deep breaths again, honing my focus, when a scratching noise met my ears.
An arc of light cut into the space as a panel was removed from the ceiling.
I was blinded for a moment, but once I was able to see, I looked up using my hand to cover my eyes.
I caught Lhandon staring down at me, an
apprehensive look on his face.
Chapter Fifteen: Three Years, Three Months, Three Weeks and Three Days
“Are you okay, Nick?”
“Where the hell am I?” I asked, seeing that the distance between the floor and the ceiling was about nine feet. Still shielding my eyes, I looked from the corner of the room back to the opening in the ceiling, hoping that I could make the leap between here and there.
No way.
Dammit.
“I’m sorry, Nick.”
“You already said that, Lhandon! Where the hell am I?”
“In one of our deep meditation chambers.”
“How long have I been down here?”
“About a day. There’s a chamber pot that you can use.”
“Aware, and I don’t need to use the fucking chamber pot. Why the hell has he put me down here? Because I almost beat him?”
“The Exonerated One sees your potential, and he thought this would be the best place for you to go to have a breakthrough.”
“He thought…” I took a deep breath in. “A hole in the ground isn’t the best place for anyone to go!”
“People can benefit from the meditation chambers.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Don’t be angry, Nick, this is for your own good.”
“I don’t believe it is,” I told him. “Look, Lhandon, and I’m deadly serious here: I want you to tell him to let me out of here.”
“I’m afraid he won’t listen to me; you’ll have to serve out your time.”
“No, I did not agree to this. Lhandon. You’re doing this against my will.”
“Aren’t you interested in the Way of the Immortals?” he asked, true concern in his eyes. “I’m not even at the level that I could benefit from isolation. I think I’ll be a Broken Sword for life. The Exonerated One thinks you may be at the stage of the Wheel with a Rusty Axle. That’s really good, you know!”
I shook my head. “I am not from here, I know nothing of the texts or the script, I don’t even believe in any of this.”
“And he thinks you might be a Golden One, which is very rare indeed.”
“The what? You’re not listening to me, Lhandon! I’m nobody special. I never have been, never will be.”
Path of the Divine Page 9
