I cut the other one down with my flaming sword but was too focused on finishing the job to avoid one of the reptilian zombies, who launched himself off the cart.
He landed on me, his arms wrapped around my shoulders and neck, nearly sinking his teeth into the side of my neck.
I managed to flip him over just in time.
I pressed away from the creature, snow kicking up into the air as I drove my flaming blade into its chest, the zombie letting out a terrible moan.
The elven zombie dove for me. Time slowed, allowing me to sidestep her attack and cut her body in half. Time returned to its normal pace as the two halves of her body hit the ground, flopping, spraying the white snow with crimson.
“Answer me!” I heard Sona shout, holding her blade at the leader of the cat-men, a literal pile of bodies around us now. One of the mules kicked off its reins, slamming headfirst into a rock. The other was already dead.
“You won’t be able to stop her,” the cat-man said, hissing. “No one will be able to stop her. This is but a taste of what she is capable of. Long live Madame Blanche!”
Sona drove her blade into his chest and used her foot as leverage to pull it back out.
“We should go to Cultivation Hills,” she said as she wiped her blade on his body. “We need to see this through. You can fight, too. I’ll give you that. But we need to go.”
“That’s not part of the plan,” I told her. “And you know that. You’ve already agreed to get me an audience with Madame Mabel, and I want to meet with my friend again, the alchemist.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Sona finally said. She sheathed it, a swirl of snow spinning around her. “We would be best served to return to Nagchu first, to report this to Madame Mabel and then go from there. If you help me going forward in dealing with Madame Blanche, I think I’ll be able to completely forget about the fact that you were once a slave…”
I sheathed my blade and glanced to Lhandon, whose hands were before him now in a prayer position as he mumbled some incantation.
“Let’s just get to Nagchu first,” I finally told her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Negative Karma
“I will prepare the meal,” Lhandon said as soon as we arrived at the cave where we planned to spend the night.
It was a different cave than we had stayed in before, definitely smaller, and after drawing my blade and using it to add some light to the space, I was happy to see that there were no bats, snow snakes or abandoned treasure chests.
Roger flapped his wings as he landed near Lhandon, who had already started to look for items to put in the fire pit. “I’ll find some twigs,” he said, about to lift off the ground again. “Or maybe not. We’re in a cave. But there must be something worth burning.”
“He’s going to help me, right?” Lhandon asked me.
“That’s right,” I said as the tropical bird rose back into the air, disappearing into one of the darkened corners of the cave.
I still had my blade drawn, happy to help Lhandon light the fire once he got enough kindling. But after standing there for a minute like an idiot, occasionally looking over to Sona, I figured it would be best to put the weapon away.
“You aren’t very good with a sword, are you?” she asked.
“It isn’t my weapon of choice if that’s what you’re asking.”
She drew her blade. “Care to spar?”
“Is that the appropriate response to someone saying they aren’t good with a sword?”
She smirked. “I figured I’d ask.”
“Right here?” I took a look around the space. We had some clearance above us, but it still felt like it would be a bad place to pretend fight.
“I suppose we could go outside, but we may draw attention to ourselves if we do so, especially with your flaming blade and the energy that radiates off the Mummified Hand of Dolma.”
She admired the hilt of her weapon for a moment. I had looked at it a few times now and instinctively remembered holding it. It felt like leather, but there was something morbid about the feeling in my palm, something warm.
“She’s right,” Lhandon said, “about fighting in here rather than out there. As far as we know, we haven’t attracted any spirits. If you two go out there clicking your blades together, there’s no telling who will notice.”
Roger returned with bits of dried grass, depositing them in the fire pit. “There’s a load of this stuff at the back of the cave. I think someone once used this place for food storage. Some wood too.”
“He says there’s wood at the back of the cave,” I told Lhandon.
“Right, then I will help the bird get the wood, while you two try not to kill each other.” He offered both of us a concerned smile followed by a quick bow.
“The monk has clearly poisoned your mind about karma,” she said once Lhandon was out of earshot.
“What do you mean?” I brought my blade to the ready, flames licking off of its blackened metal.
“Of all the paths that you could have chosen here in Lhasa, you’ve chosen the weakest one. You assume that doing good things will bring you karma, and this is a correct assumption, but you know nothing of the other side, of negative karma. This weapon,” she said, lifting her blade in the air and turning it horizontal, “is fueled by negative karma.”
“And mine?”
“The user determines that.”
Sona charged me, but rather than try to cut me down, she bent backward, bringing her hand around, a sphere of pink energy exploding from her palm, tossing me aside.
“Is that how we are going to do this?” I asked as I got to my feet, feeling a bit shaken.
I glanced down at the ring on my finger, the one I had taken from Fist of Force.
An idea came to me, and rather than charge Sona, I simply switched my sword to my other hand and punched the air in her direction.
A wave of force slammed her into a wall.
“Clever,” she said, getting to her feet. “But weak.”
“It knocked you down,” I reminded her, both hands on my blade now.
“You need to think more fluidly with your attacks; that’s the only way that you will truly be able to take an opponent like me.”
Sona performed an aerial, and it was as if she had slipped into an invisible doorway, the woman suddenly gone, appearing behind me, back to back, bringing her elbow into my side and stopping.
“That’s one way to get your opponent,” I said, noticing that she was about my height, her ass pressed against me.
She used her rear to push me forward, and appeared in front of me, holding her blade under my chin.
“Easy, easy,” I started to tell her, my hand naturally charging.
“I could end this right now, you know that.” She placed her free hand on my head and lowered me to the ground so that I was now on one knee.
“But what would that solve?” I asked her, or rather, a voice at the back of my head asked her. While I should have been scared shitless, part of me was focused on my next move.
And I let that part take over.
Sona looked down at me, and as she did, I delivered a burst of force into her stomach, sending her up to the ceiling. In doing so I accidentally swiped my flaming blade against her leg. Sona yelped as her flesh sizzled.
She landed hard, immediately flipping back up to her feet. She looked at her leg, armor already cascading down her body.
“You moved faster than my armor,” she said, a surprised and slightly angry look on her face.
“You already knew I had the Power,” I told her.
Even though my gesture had totally been accidental, I decided to go with this line of reasoning instead, hoping that it would make me a more formidable opponent in her eyes.
I had a feeling that that would come in handy at some point.
“I’ll heal you after this,” I promised her.
Our blades connected, Sona’s a blur of force.
She swept my legs out from under me and had her sword at my
throat again in a matter of moments.
“You’re going to have to get better,” she said.
“This isn’t my weapon of choice,” I reminded her.
“And what would your weapon of choice be?”
“Against someone with a sword?”
She nodded.
“A gun.”
“A what?”
Lhandon came back into the room, dropping the bits of wood he’d collected once he saw that Sona was standing over me.
I saw him dip into his robe for the bottled ice spirit that we had collected a few days back, ready to unleash it.
“Don’t do it,” I told him, “she won’t kill me.” I directed this statement directly at Sona, staring deeply into her eyes for a moment. “I’m sure she won’t.”
Her foot connected with the side of my cheek, snapping my jaw. I hit the ground hard, moaning in pain as blood seeped from my mouth.
“Say the word,” I heard Roger call as he lifted into the air, making his way toward us. “She won’t know; she can’t understand me.”
Still on the ground, I cast Healing Hand, bringing my hand to my jaw, a sudden warmth radiating through my skin as my bones clicked back into place.
Once I pushed myself to my feet, I sheathed my blade, turning to Sona.
“Was that rough enough for you?” she asked.
“That’s some kick you have on you.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t take your head off,” she said in an almost playful way.
“Can I heal you?” I asked, looking at the cauterized slash mark on her leg.
Sona set her foot on a rock, showing me her wound.
“This should only take a second.” I placed my hand on her leg, not able to look away from her.
The tension was palpable.
I wanted to ignore it, but damn if it wasn’t surging through me. While I thought she was beautiful and intriguing, I also knew she was deadly, and I didn’t quite agree with this cultivation of negative karma that she had hinted at earlier.
Even without really thinking about it, cultivating negative karma seemed like a reason to do whatever a person wanted, to exploit people. As much as I wanted to get out of this world and back to my own, I knew that this wasn’t going to be my mode of operation.
I lowered my hand once I finished healing her. Sona kept her leg up on the rock, looking me over.
“With some training, you might actually be useful,” she said.
“I thought we were just sparring,” I told her. “I wasn’t trying to actually kill you.”
“Next time, you should actually try to kill me. Because you never know…”
She dropped her foot to the ground, still staring me down.
“Have you always been like this?” I asked her, throwing her off guard a bit.
I could tell by the way she was looking at me that she was expecting either shit-talking or flirty banter.
I gave her neither.
“Have I always been like what?” she asked, her voice a little softer now.
“Go ahead and get the fire started,” I told Lhandon, who still seemed ready to act, “and don’t worry about me. Sona and I aren’t going to kill each other.”
“Sounds like you want to know more about my past,” Sona said after we’d taken a few steps away from Lhandon.
“It would be helpful in determining our future, I’ll tell you that.”
“You think you have a future with me?” she asked, an almost disgusted look on her face.
“That came out wrong. What I meant was that an understanding of your past would help me better understand who you are…”
“I was just giving you a hard time,” she said. “And yes, I’ve always been like this. Ever since I was a young slave.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “You started off as a slave?”
“Most people that work for Madame Mabel started as slaves, aside from those who have come to us with the unique power, like we thought that you had. But you weren’t able to replicate it, so that’s why you also became a slave.”
“So you’re a daughter of one of the slaves, and you weren’t married off?”
She shook her head. “None of the soldiers would dare marry me; they all knew what I was capable of. Even at a young age, I always fought for what was mine. It is who I am. I do not give up.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you did.” I caught sight of Roger out of the corner of my eye, lurking around, listening to what she was saying.
“What about you?” she asked. “Who are you, really?”
“Like I’ve told you. I’m from a different world, from a state called Massachusetts, and a country called America.”
“Massachusetts, huh?”
“I’m aware that is a strange word.”
“It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. But you have asked me, so now I’m asking you. Who were you before you came here?”
“I was just…”
I was hit by a barrage of thoughts, fleeting images, everything that had happened before I arrived in Lhasa. The odd jobs that I’d worked, the path I’d never quite found, dropping out of college, some time spent in Europe, drifting.
Always drifting.
“Well?”
“I was just a regular person,” I told her, swallowing hard. “I really hadn’t found my way just yet. Maybe coming here is how I found my way. I don’t know. But I want to get back to my world. And I want to meet my friends, specifically Bobby and Hugo. I don’t know if Tom’s alive, but if he is, then I would like to see him as well.”
“And you say you came through a portal, correct?”
I nodded at her, no longer able to look Sona in the eyes. I stared at the cave wall, noticing that there was a sparkling vein of minerals running through it.
“So you’ll have to use a portal to go back then.”
I shrugged. “Sure, if it’s that easy. But for some reason, I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”
“And you weren’t a fighter in your world?”
“Hardly. I mean, I had been in a few tussles, just like any guy, but nothing like this. I for sure didn’t have a flaming sword,” I said, tapping the hilt of my weapon.
Sona smiled. “It is an impressive weapon; I can feel that my own sword is curious about it, perhaps even a little afraid. Or maybe that’s what I want you to think.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Getting Dolled Up
It was hard saying goodbye to Lhandon the next day, but I definitely didn’t want him coming to Nagchu, nor did I want him taking part in whatever war was to come.
I wasn’t too keen on taking part either, but before I made that decision, I needed to see Bobby, and speak to him.
And Evan? It wouldn’t be pretty if we ran into each other.
So Lhandon and I said our goodbyes, the friendly monk trying not to look sad as we turned away from him.
“I promise I’ll be back,” I said yet again. “And I have a title for you now, something I’ve been thinking about since this morning.”
“A title?”
“Lhandon, the Exalted One.”
He took a step back. “You’re… you’re not serious.”
“I am.”
“I can’t accept this title.”
“What if I told you a dakini visited me in my dreams and suggested I give the title to you?”
He grinned. “Is that true?”
“Sure,” I told him. “At least that’s what I think she said.”
We stood at a fork in the path, one going toward the monastery and the other toward Nagchu. It would be a long walk, and I was already feeling it in my feet, but things were much better with the new boots I’d picked up from Fist of Force.
“Then I will accept your title,” Lhandon said, bowing in my direction. Sona stood a few steps away from me, not at all interested in our conversation.
“Glad to hear it, because coming up with these titles is hard.”
He laughed long and hard. “I suppose it is. Good luck with th
e rest of your journey, and please be safe.”
“I will be. See you soon.”
“I can only hope that is the case.” He bowed again. “I will continue to work on a method for structuring the Path of the Divine. Our conversations have helped me, Nick, they truly have. I believe that cultivation through the Path of the Divine will truly bring new understanding of the Way of the Immortals to Lhasa, and the lands beyond. But only if progress isn’t a carrot and a stick scenario, only if it is truly quantifiable.”
“I look forward to seeing what you come up with.” I reached my hand out, Lhandon taking it. “It has been a true pleasure.”
“It truly has.”
It was another nine hours’ walk to the city, Roger perched on my shoulder and sometimes flying ahead, Sona always to my right. It felt different without Lhandon around, his wisdom and curiosity leaving a tangible void considering how much time we’d spent together over the past few days, weeks if you counted my imprisonment.
Sona made the separation worse, the strange woman rarely talking and occasionally using her power to float so she could rest her legs.
“Wouldn’t you like to be able to do that?” Roger asked at some point.
“I’d rather have wings,” I told him.
The bird laughed. “I’ll trade you wings for hands any day of the week.”
We passed a statue of a snow lion, something that I didn’t remember seeing when I first came to Nagchu as a slave. Seeing the lion reminded me of Saruul; I still held her name on my tongue, ready to use it one day.
There were a lot of pieces at play here, from the dynamics that I knew I was about to experience with Madame Mabel, to the strange energy between Sona and me.
There were my commitments to Lhandon, promising him that I would try to secure patronage for the monastery, my loyalty to Roger, the bird who had saved my life, plus the desire to see my friends again, to actually be able to process this with someone from my world.
Not to mention the desire to return home.
Yet the thought of Saruul came to me again, and I wondered what she was doing up in the mountains, wishing there was an easier way for me to communicate with her.
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