“Humble too, you’re very humble, Nick.”
“Please, shut up and let me finish here.”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
“I’m not anybody, and all I want is to find my friends and…”
“Yes? What else would you like?”
“Revenge,” I admitted.
“Against the Exonerated One? Please don’t take this as cruel, even though it may seem a bit unorthodox. But this is one of the fastest ways to move up a stage on the Path of the Divine. It borrows from the Path of Sudden Enlightenment, which is why it seems extreme. The Exonerated One is smart like that, you know. He knows how all the paths can merge, how… ” Lhandon smiled. “You’d have to let him explain it; I’m just a novice. I’ve read about all the paths, sure, and I get what he’s trying to do, and to be honest, I’ve developed a few of my own ideas to use if I ever reach his level. But I won’t reach his level, so I suppose that is a moot point.”
“Lhandon.”
“Yes, Nick?”
“I don’t agree to this,” I said, my whole body trembling.
“No one does at first, but you’ll get used to it. In the scheme of things, three years, three months, three weeks and three days isn’t that long. The Exonerated One himself went through a similar ritual when he was in prison.”
“Did you say three years?”
“Three years, three months, three weeks and three days of uninterrupted contemplation. I’m afraid the clock has to start over because of our little dialogue here. But I believe it’s important for you to understand what’s happening here, which was why I volunteered to explain it to you. For the first year, you’ll experience a completely dark and silent contemplation. For the second year, you’ll be given a deity to meditate upon and a few hours of light per day. For the third year, you’ll be given parchment, sacred texts, and a quill. You’ll be able to make silent requests at that point for other religious works that may interest you.”
“Lhandon, I do not agree with this!”
“You’ll get two meals a day, which we’ll lower down to you in the morning. That’s what I’m here to do now. You may also send your chamber pot up daily and someone will clean it. Be careful doing that, though, it can create quite a mess! Luckily, one of the monks who has been through this ritual devised a way to make it easier, so when we lower your two meals, we’ll also lower a lid for you to seal your chamber pot with.”
“Please, Lhandon, goddamn you!”
“The Exonerated One said not to take whatever you say to me as a karmic affront. You seem genuinely angry, but I am a Broken Sword so there’s not much I can do aside from listening to the rules that are presented to me. I’m sorry, Nick.”
“Lhandon!” I shouted, kicking the wall.
“We won’t be able to speak after this unless you want to reset the clock, but I promise to be the one who lowers food down to you daily. It is my karmic duty to help you, and in three years, three months, three weeks and three days, I hope we can remain friends. I’d like to hear more about this place called… Massachusetts. Did I say that right?”
“Dammit, Lhandon, you aren’t listening to me. I don’t agree with this!”
“And if any of your friends stop by, I’ll let them know the day you will emerge from your deep meditation. Consider yourself lucky, Nick. I’ve never seen the Exonerated One so sure of a monk’s path, and that’s saying something considering I’ve been here since I was a boy.”
He nodded, satisfied with the fucked up thing he was about to do.
“Please…” I started to say.
“I’m lowering your food now, and I’ll take your chamber pot tomorrow. I’ll have wax in my ears just in case you try to speak to me. Remember, if I hear you, the process restarts.”
The first day was the most brutal.
The second day was terrifying.
The third day was exhausting.
The fourth day was filled with some of the strangest visuals I’d had yet, from angels to electric dragons, a sword made of flames to a man with energy hands. I fought towering demons, easily the size of a four-story building, with teeth for eyes, thousands of sharp claws, poisonous tails and blood-curdling roars, the darkness swelling, knifing into my chest, beating me against the floor.
My fists.
Beating them against the floor.
My heart.
Beating in my chest.
My stomach, twisting into a knot.
My body covered in sweat.
The fifth day was… fast.
Time was a jagged blur by this point, aside from once a day when the panel opened above, and food was lowered to me.
I lost track on the sixth day.
The room was illuminated now. I’d crafted a swanky Manhattan apartment in my head, with views of Central Park, a beautiful wife that looked like Dema, the most comfortable bed in the city, a shitter in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window.
I remembered what day it was on the eighth day. By this point, I felt that I could conjure light with my hands, the darkness no longer as bad as it had been on the first day. I could see things now; there were subtleties to everything, shades of black that I didn’t know existed.
I was surrounded by friends.
Tom was here, alive, happy.
Bobby was making self-deprecating jokes as usual, wisdom beyond his years.
Hugo was the Hugo I remembered before he joined the Marines, a daring man full of kindness with a wicked sense of humor.
Before the end of the eighth day, I was back in Worcester, Massachusetts, walking downtown, old brick buildings all around me. It was a city that had been partially forgotten and recently remembered, new businesses opening, still recovering from the opioid epidemic.
I had called the place home for several years now, liking its proximity to Boston, the strangeness that lurked beneath its surface in the form of festivals and concerts, odd jobs and eclectic denizens.
I walked along the street for a moment, a few cars zipping past, a place that sold beer and donuts on my right. Hunger coming over me, I stepped into the establishment and found a glimmering case filled with a wide variety of donuts, from a chocolate one with bacon on top to cake donuts with pink and blue sprinkles.
There was a donut with my name on it and I took it, examining the pastry before taking a bite, immediately disappearing.
I stood in front of Bancroft Tower in Salisbury Park, the tower built by a friend to honor the life of a man who helped establish the United States Naval Academy.
I looked up at the structure with its crenellated square towers, and off-center circular tower sticking up from the middle, an arched gateway beneath. It was a striking visual, one that reminded me of the power of friendship.
Lifting my arms up brought me to the top of the tower where I was able to get a stunning view of Worcester, the trees starting to turn to their fall colors, hues of red and orange spreading across the horizon.
I was at peace.
By the start of the ninth day, I was content to be trapped in the meditation chamber. The only thing I didn’t like was when I had to make a bowel movement, mostly because it made the space smell. I had almost trained myself to go just before food was lowered, so I could get it out of here as quickly as possible.
By the eleventh day, I had successfully taken control of my own bodily functions.
This sparked new ideas to try, from lowering my heart rate to concentrating so hard that I put my brain in a constant state of dreaming. It was escapism, and it was beautiful. I could be anywhere at a moment’s notice, from standing at the top of Mt. Everest to looking up at the Great Pyramid, its secrets revealed to me.
Time did not matter. The room was well lit. My life was on pause. Everything in its right place.
A severe depression hit me on the sixteenth day.
I could barely lift myself from my cot. The darkness was oppressive, the world nonexistent, the food bland, the pain real.
I tried to kill myself by runn
ing my head into one of the walls, but I didn’t have enough room to really get a good running start. I also tried to throw myself backward and crack my head against the ground, but every time I did this I was stopped by an invisible force from finishing the job.
I beat myself with the tray they lowered my food on.
It hurt, and it gave me a headache, but I couldn’t hit myself hard enough to do any lasting damage, and Lhandon never provided silverware, so that wasn’t an option either.
My nails were longer now, so I tried using my own nails to cut into my veins, but while they would draw blood, I was never able to get deep enough to finish the job. And by the following day, the wounds would be healed up anyway.
My depression left by the twenty-first day, replaced by bliss.
I was free.
The darkened space was a glimmering meadow of the mind where anything was possible.
I could sit on a cloud and fly around the meadow, meeting new people, greeting loved ones, having anything and anyone I desired.
I could hear music now.
A cello playing in the background, a beautiful melody that I could never quite follow, the tempo always changing, the sound morphing to that of a tiger growling, a beast snoring, a young girl humming, a motorcycle on a quiet street, a box fan in a window.
The sound of screams, the sound of fighting, the sound of swords, explosions, more cries, agony.
Food didn’t come the next morning.
I thought back to what I had experienced the night before.
Were the sounds I’d heard actually real?
I heard the top open at some point, no light coming into the room.
“Nick, it’s me, Lhandon.”
I looked up at the ceiling, noticing a difference in the space, twilight seeping in. The orange light of a lantern painted across the space, invigorating me and frightening me at the same time.
“You can talk to me,” he whispered. “I know you’re awake, I can see you. I’m lowering a rope down; there’s been a problem.”
Chapter Sixteen: Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom
“The shortest three years, three months, three weeks and three days of your life, right?” Lhandon asked as I reached the top.
I almost tackled the portly monk.
I’d never felt like striking someone so hard in my life, but this feeling left me as soon as it crossed my mind, as soon as I labeled it.
I’d never had that short of a temper before, but I noticed something different after I pulled myself out of the hole in the ground. I had been able to completely label the thought, observe it, and let it pass, rather than act.
I didn’t believe this was something I could have done a few weeks back. This didn’t stop me from making a threat, however.
“You’re really lucky,” I told him, my eyes narrowing on him.
“It wasn’t my idea, Nick, I already told you that. But look on the bright side, you made it for three weeks, which is a feat in itself. An auspicious number, even! There have been people that have killed themselves before then.”
“I tried that.”
“You tried to kill yourself?” he asked, concern in his eyes.
“I did, but I wasn’t able to do it.”
“Unless you’re a ghost now.”
“I’m not a goddamn ghost.”
“Good, because I’m not great with spirits unless it involves riddles.”
“What kind of system is this, anyway?” I asked, growing agitated again. “How can this be part of the Path of the Divine?”
“I already explained it to you, Nick, the Exonerated One was hoping…”
“There’s no rhyme nor reason to this,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s just a series of guesses, isn’t it? I’m a Broken Sword, or a Rusty Wheel, or whatever.”
“Wheel with a Rusty Axle.”
“How can sticking someone in a hole without their permission help them do anything? How can that be a quantifiable way to reach this world’s version of enlightenment?”
“I…”
“You don’t have an answer, do you? Has anyone ever quantified, or, I don’t know, codified the Path of the Divine? I get it, there are other paths in this grand idea that is the Way of the Immortals, but at least the one you follow is the middle path, right?”
He nodded.
“Then it should at least have steps and a testable system, don’t you agree?”
Lhandon clasped his hands together and bowed his head. “Actually, yes, I do agree. It is something I’ve thought for some time now.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. What you are saying is correct, and requires more exploration. But there are more pressing matters at the moment… ”
I took a look around the space, which was illuminated by the orange light from Lhandon’s lantern. We were surrounded by trees, and I could also see a preparation area stacked with the trays that had been lowered down to me.
Other than that, there wasn’t a lot to give me any indication where we were, aside from the biting cold, which made me think we were still in the mountains.
“What happened?” I finally asked.
“They attacked us,” he said, fear painting across his face. “A powerful group of treasure hunters ransacked the monastery, they… they…”
I recalled the group that Roger and I had seen on our way to the monastery. Could it have been them? Once Lhandon was able to regain control of himself, he continued:
“I was just getting ready for bed when the attack started. There were nine or ten of them, and one of them had the Fist of Force.”
“Fist of Force?” I asked, the ground feeling shaky for a moment.
“From a rare artifact. I saw what they did with my own eyes. I saw all of it. Forgive me, Nick,” he said, throwing himself at my feet. “I am a coward! I hid and I… I survived. I’m so sorry, but I survived. The karmic repercussions…”
“Do not be sorry for trying to survive.”
“Their leader had the Fist of Force. I saw him punch a monk so hard that the man’s skin separated from his skeleton. Dead. All of them dead.”
“Everyone’s dead. The Exonerated One?”
Lhandon looked up at me, tears in his eyes. “The Exonerated One was first taken out by a poisonous dart, but he could have… he would have had the strength to take down the Fist of Force had it not been for the deaths.”
“So everyone is dead? I don’t understand, Lhandon.”
“Yes, everyone, including the children.” He got to his feet again, slowly, his weight making it difficult for him to do so in a timely manner. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “I come from a long line of men with big bones.”
“Don’t worry about that. And stop apologizing, Lhandon.”
“Sorry!”
“Please tell me what happened.”
He nodded, swallowing hard. “I’ve been at this monastery for thirty years. I came here when I was ten.”
“You’re forty?”
“I am. The weight makes me look younger.”
“Okay.”
Lhandon continued. “Anyway, in my thirty years here, I’ve come to know some things. I’ve come to understand how a monastery could potentially exploit the Way of the Immortals, how a person could use others to cultivate his own immortality. What am I saying? I shouldn’t be saying this.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, but no one is here to judge you, and you said yourself that everyone is dead…”
He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, sucked in a deep breath, and let it out. “The Exonerated One had figured out a way to exploit the combined karma of all the monks, including mine, to increase his power and his life span. He wasn’t a true practitioner—there, I said it. I mean, he was, but he wasn’t. He just figured out a way to convince others to do the heavy lifting for him. So once…” He started to sob again. “Once he was temporarily poisoned, he couldn’t use any of his powers, powers that were stolen from all of us. Fist of Force k
new about all this. He lined up the monks in the courtyard and had all of their heads cut off. I saw all of them die, Nick. All of them!”
The thought hit me. “And… because they were all killed, the Exonerated One lost his powers.”
“Yes! They woke him up with an antidote. He saw all the monks lying with pools of blood around the places where their heads used to be and he started to age rapidly, shriveling and dying.”
“How did you survive this?”
“I was sleeping like I told you. And because I had failed to cultivate enough, according to the Exonerated One, I had been banished to a room above the outhouse. It has a view of the courtyard, but the single window is mostly obscured by trees. I watched it all happen from there. They also had a prisoner, a woman.”
“Jesus.”
“Who’s that?”
“Never mind. Do you know what they were looking for? What could the treasure hunters possibly have wanted?”
Lhandon grew quiet. “I know exactly what they were looking for.”
“What?” I asked.
“Come. I’ll… I’ll explain everything once we get back to the monastery. It isn’t a long walk, just a few minutes. I’m so sorry to free you from your deep meditation.”
“Are there any others to free?” I asked, noticing a polished stone panel not far from where we currently stood.
“No, you were the only one doing this exercise at the moment. Let’s get back to the monastery; I don’t like being in this part of the woods at night. There may be spirits out.”
I followed Lhandon on a winding rocky path that led to the monastery. It was entirely surreal to be back out of the underground meditation cell. There were a few times when I assumed this was all a hallucination, that my mind had invented everything Lhandon had told me.
The smells had also taken me off guard.
I’d gone from the earthy smell of cold rocks to the fresh scent of pine, and each breath in was more refreshing than the last.
There was something different about me, something I definitely noticed as I took in the outline of the monastery at the top of a hill, the moon directly behind it, larger-than-life.
Path of the Divine Page 10
