Path of the Divine

by Harmon Cooper

  “Stay here,” Sona said, walking over to a pair of guards that stood outside Madame Mabel’s estate. It was clear that some of them had never actually seen Sona in person, and they behaved in such a stilted way that it made me feel awkward.

  Having traveled with the woman over two days, I’d gotten to know a little more about her and the way she operated. Sona was aggressive, sure, but she had fought for everything she had, including her title, and she wore this chip on her shoulder, just as anyone would in her situation.

  We were told to wait for a moment so a carriage could come, and once it did, I experienced firsthand the opulence that Sona was used to. The carriage was decked out in silver and gold, several faces of snow lions carved into the metal, every bit of it polished.

  The coachman got down from his perch and opened the door. Sona got in first followed by Roger and me, the bird still perched on my shoulder like I was a goddamn pirate.

  A few of the slaves had started to gather, the women with scarves around the lower portion of their faces similar to how Sona wore hers, a couple of them gasping when she made eye contact with them.

  “Ignore them,” Sona said as the carriage started up, the horse’s hooves making a percussive sound against the pavement.

  “You’ve got a lot of fans.”

  “It isn’t easy being head of the elite guard,” she said, not looking out the window. “Everyone either wants to be me or kill me, so that’s why I keep my guard up.”

  “I didn’t say anything about you keeping your guard up.”

  “And it’s not my fault they worship me. They should know better. Maybe they should practice the Way of the Immortals, anything other than looking to me for answers.”

  “Maybe they just like your fashion sense.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “That’s a baited question,” Roger said.

  “I know better than to answer that question.”

  “You’re learning,” Sona said with a smirk. She had a sharp sense of humor, but this didn’t diminish the fact that she was basically wearing a bikini with a cape over her shoulders and a long scarf, her “armor” only appearing when she needed it.

  “What can I expect when we get there?” I asked her.

  It was a question I’d meant to ask for the last several hours.

  “They’ll probably be talking about the bird on your shoulder,” Roger said, a beat too late. He had been pretty surprised that this was the type of service we were getting in Nagchu, maybe even a little starstruck.

  “What does he keep saying?” Sona asked.

  “He thinks people are interested in him,” I translated.

  “Can you hear all birds, or just him?”

  “Just him, from what I can tell.”

  “The only bird worth listening to,” Roger added. “Believe me there.”

  “And what about my question, what should I expect? I’m being serious; I don’t want to go into this looking like an idiot.”

  “Considering you’re wearing monk robes and don’t have the haircut of a monk; plus you have a big sword sheathed at your belt, also unlike a monk; and you have a turquoise bird with yellow tail feathers on your shoulder, it’s safe to say that you are going to look like an idiot.” Sona laughed at her own joke.

  “She has a point,” Roger said.

  “See? Even the bird agrees with me.”

  “He likes to give me shit,” I said as the carriage came to a stop.

  We turned left onto a cobblestoned road where we came to another gate, this one opening up into an expansive space with enormous sycamore trees, the place a spitting image of one of the plantation homes they had in the South.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sona asked finally. “To think how much Madame Mabel has sacrificed to keep such a beautiful property.”

  Roger shook his head. “It’s pretty easy to keep the property like this when you have slaves, am I right?”

  “He sure squawks a lot,” Sona said, narrowing her eyes at the bird. “But to answer your question, there will be clothing waiting for you in your room. You will change into this clothing, and get cleaned up. You will leave your weapon in the room.”

  “The Flaming Thunderbolt doesn’t leave my side,” I started to tell her.

  “Then you don’t meet Madame Mabel. We will not disturb your weapon; it’s not something that we do, and it has clearly chosen a master.”

  “I will watch your sword,” Roger said.

  “Fine,” I told Sona. “And Bobby? When will we meet him?”

  “I do not know the answer to that question. But you will meet Madame Mabel, and after I tell her of what we encountered in the mountains, and how you rescued me, then we can learn about her plan to stop Madame Blanche’s spread into Cultivation Hills. We’ll probably eat as well, a grand dinner, the likes of which you’ve never had before. So get cleaned up, and behave yourself. Meeting Madame Mabel is a rare honor.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually looked at myself. Perhaps I had seen my reflection in one of the frozen lakes that we passed, or in the eyes of Lhandon or Sona.

  But looking at myself now, my gaunt cheeks, the dark beard I’d grown and my untamed hair, had me smirking.

  Of all things.

  I was never very large, but I knew I’d never been this skinny before, any extra weight I may have had dripping off me because of my recent change in diet, my confinement, my hike deep into the mountains and back.

  It was something else. I looked homeless, yet healthy.

  There was clothing set out for me, and I’d been instructed to shave and bathe as well. A warm bath awaited me, a marble tub in the far corner of the room. A woman stood near it with a soft smile on her face.

  “Are you ready, sir?”

  “I can take care of myself,” I started to say.

  “No, I’m here to take care of you, sir.”

  “I know, you’ve already indicated that, but I can take care of myself,” I said as I rested my sword on the bed. Roger was sitting on a cushion, looking from the woman to me, wondering how this would play out.

  “Why don’t you just let her help?” he finally asked.

  “Because she’s a slave,” I said under my breath.

  “What’s wrong with me being a slave?” the woman asked me. “I’m given a good life here, a much better life than I would have out there in the fields. It is my job to please Madame Mabel’s guests. How may I please you?”

  She was a redheaded woman, with fair skin and eyes that reminded me of some of the reptilian people I had seen. I didn’t know if there was crossbreeding between them, but it was the only indication that she was a bit different.

  At least from what I could tell.

  “If you need me to leave the room,” Roger started to say. “Wait, I can’t leave. It’s my duty now to watch your fire sword. But I won’t watch, I can promise you that. You have my dagger, right?”

  I nodded, retrieving the dagger and placing it on the bed. I had grown accustomed to carrying it for Roger. It made more sense that way, not that he couldn’t hold it (or use it for that matter).

  “Good,” he said, hopping over to the blade and grabbing the leather tassel on its end.

  “Your bird is cute,” the woman said.

  “He can be pretty ornery,” I told her. “And to be honest with you, all I’m interested in doing right now is getting cleaned up and meeting Mabel.”

  “Madame Mabel.”

  “Exactly,” I said as I started undressing.

  She came over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder and smoothing it down my bicep. “Can I help you shave? I’m really good at it.”

  “Actually, I don’t think another person has ever shaved me before. So sure.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll watch her,” Roger called over to me. “If she tries anything funny, I’ll kill her.”

  “Unnecessary,” I told the bird as I took a seat, the woman going to a sink near the bathtub. She pumped hot water up using he
r foot.

  Once she got the cloth good and saturated with the hot water, she came over to me and told me to stretch my neck back. Bending over me, and giving me a good look at her breasts, the woman began lathering me up, using another rag on her arm to clean the blade with each stroke.

  “Aren’t I good at this?” she purred to me.

  “You’re great,” I told her, once the blade was away from my cheek again.

  “I have been shaving men since I was ten.”

  “You’re really good at it.”

  “That is one of the things that I would like to have done if I am ever able to gain enough karma to be reborn as a human,” Roger said. “I’d like to experience what it’s like to be shaved.”

  The bird hopped to the edge of the bed, giving him a better view of me while I was shaved.

  “Really?” I asked him as the woman cleaned the blade again.

  “She’s really good at it too, I can tell. You should see how fast she’s moving when she wipes the dirty blade on her arm.”

  “He can really understand you, can’t he?” the woman asked.

  “Shouldn’t you be asking me if I can understand him?” I asked her.

  “Well, it’s clear you can understand him, unless you’re just talking to yourself. And that’s okay if you’re talking to yourself. I’ve seen men do very interesting things with themselves.”

  “I am sure she has,” Roger said, cackling.

  “Thanks,” I told the woman, ignoring Roger. “You’re doing great.”

  Once she was finished, the woman led me over to the bath and helped me get in, lathering up my shoulders, my neck, my hair.

  “I’m going to wash everything,” she said, instructing me to stand. I stood, and she drained a little bit of the water from her rag, washing my legs, my knees, and my thighs. “Are you sure you don’t want anything more?” she asked as she started massaging my nether regions.

  “I promise I’m not watching,” Roger called over to me.

  “I’m fine,” I told the woman. “Let’s just finish up here.”

  “Okay,” she said with a pouty face, moving her sponge up to my chest. She tried to drop it down again a few minutes later, repeating the same question she’d asked me earlier.

  “I’m fine,” I reminded her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “And you’re doing a great job.”

  “You’re not going to get karma this way,” Roger told me.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “What? You can actually get karma by having sex, especially if someone wants to give it to you,” Roger said. “Look, I don’t make the rules here…”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Utter nonsense. His interpretation of karma is something I’m having a challenging time wrapping my mind around.”

  The woman looked over to Roger. “The bird knows about karma?”

  “He knows about a lot of things. He’s sort of a smartass.”

  The woman laughed.

  Roger, not so much.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Dinner Discovery

  “You look decent,” Sona said once she met me at the door.

  She wasn’t wearing a scarf this time, and was now in a sleek black dress with an intricate pattern stitched along its shoulder straps.

  “It was interesting, I will say that,” I told her as I followed her down a long hallway, a red carpet beneath us. My outfit matched hers in a way, a black, collarless silk jacket with a hand-stitched dragon pattern on the cuffs.

  “It is not often that anyone gets to dine with Madame Mabel, including myself. It’s a rare opportunity indeed, and you’ll be happy to know that your friend Bobby is there as well.”

  “Really?” I asked, suddenly feeling excited as we made our way down the stairwell.

  Everything moved in slow motion for a moment, and no, my power hadn’t activated. I was truly ecstatic about seeing my friend, someone familiar in a world so foreign.

  I didn’t care about the decor on our way to the dining room, ignoring the pictures on the wall, the slaves moving about with trays of food or cleaning, the guards in snow lion armor.

  None of it mattered to me.

  I had tunnel vision in that moment, my eyes immediately skipping from Madame Mabel to Bobby, who stood next to her, a solemn expression on his face.

  “Bobby?” I asked, trying to contain my smile. “Bobby!”

  But rather than run at me with a hug, he merely cleared his throat and nodded.

  I looked at him strangely, feeling the history that we shared, especially since we’d known each other since we were about six years old. I’d seen the man grow up, his triumphs and failures, and he had equally been part of mine.

  But to get a reception like this? A reception so cold?

  “Madame Mabel,” Sona said, elbowing me. “This is Nick Barnette.”

  “Hello,” I told the woman, who wore a purple dress that I imagined a cartoon villain would wear. It was an elaborate piece, the collar popped with multiple colors cascading down the fabric. It was a robe of sorts, but it was also shapely, tight in all the right places, showing just how fit she was.

  And the makeup.

  It was plastered across her face, like something a cheerleader would wear.

  There was something instantly repulsive about her, even if she was technically beautiful.

  So rather than look at her any longer, or say anything else to her, I returned my attention to Bobby.

  “Are you all right, man?” I asked him.

  “I’m fine, Nick,” he said, something off about his eyes, something glazed about the way he was looking at me.

  I’d seen this look before, but I didn’t want to assume he was on drugs, and besides, he may just have been playing along for etiquette reasons.

  I really didn’t know.

  “Let us sit,” Madame Mabel said, taking a seat after one of her servants had pulled the chair out for her. Bobby sat next to her, albeit a space away, and Sona and I sat directly across from her.

  There was more food on the table than I had ever seen in Lhasa.

  It would have been enough food for two Thanksgiving meals, the table filled with everything from pheasants to a roasted pig, a shoulder of beef, tropical fruits, different types of bread, assorted casseroles and other baked dishes.

  “So,” she said as servants started reaching around us, preparing our plates. I found this to be very uncomfortable, and quickly told one of the servants not to cut my food, that I could do it for myself.

  “As you wish, sir,” the man said, moving aside so another servant could set a glass of chung in front of me.

  Madame Mabel offered me a crooked smile as more food was arranged on her plate. “I am told that you are from the same place as Bobby, a place called Massachusetts.”

  “That’s right, we grew up together,” I said, barely looking at the woman.

  Something was off about Bobby.

  Every time I made eye contact with him, he looked away. There was a redness to his face that I’d never seen before, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “And you took it upon yourself to rescue Sona from the treasure hunters, did you not?”

  “Yes,” I said, quickly glancing to Sona and putting together the pieces of what she had told Madame Mabel.

  Sona hadn’t mentioned that I had once been Mabel’s slave, just as we had agreed upon.

  And just as I was about to look to Bobby again, I noticed something hovering in the air above Madame Mabel. It was almost the same thing I’d seen in the bandit’s tent when I saved the young woman from the evil spirit, something wispy and sinister attached to the slave owner’s form.

  It was gone now, but I was certain that I’d seen it.

  “… And you also know Sir Evan, and come from the same place,” the woman said, “which is utterly bizarre. Three men from a different world all appearing at the same time. How fascinating.”

  I opened my mouth to mention that there were more of us but stopped, wonderi
ng if this could potentially cause trouble for Hugo and Tom, if they were indeed alive. Besides, Bobby may have already said something about it.

  “Yes, it has been rather strange.”

  “So you appeared and then you headed straight to the mountains, where you went to the monastery of the Exonerated One, correct?”

  A hand reached around Madame Mabel and stabbed a piece of meat with a fork, bringing it to her mouth.

  It was fascinating to watch, and I was almost so mesmerized by the action I didn’t answer the question.

  Luckily, Sona nudged me.

  “That’s right, and the treasure hunters attacked there and killed everyone except for one of the monks, who is now head of that monastery, Lhandon, the Exalted One,” I said as I took a sip from my glass of chung. It was bittersweet, with a bit of an edge to it.

  “And the Exonerated One?”

  “Killed by the same treasure hunters that captured Sona.”

  “I see.”

  I paused, considering how I should approach this. Eventually, I just came out with it: “And since Lhandon is rebuilding, he could use your tutelage; the support of a wealthy donor would go a long way for the ransacked monastery.”

  Madame Mabel chuckled, the servant feeding her stepping back so as to avoid her laughter. “You come here soliciting donations?”

  “I did save Sona.”

  Her eyebrows arched as she started to glare at me. “I see what Sona admires in you.”

  I didn’t turn to look at Sona’s face, but I could tell out of the corner of my eye that she had gone pale at this statement.

  “You say what’s on your mind, which is good,” Madame Mabel continued. “Dangerous, but for someone that is clearly interested in the Way of the Immortals, I suppose it’s a good thing. You are on the path, are you not?”

  “I suppose I’m dabbling in it.”

  I watched as one of the servants fed Bobby.

  It was entirely disturbing, and I knew at that moment that he was hooked on lotus. What else could it have been? It was the only thing that I’d seen so far that made someone behave so lethargically.