Path of the Divine

by Harmon Cooper

  “Are you from Nagchu?” the fire spirit asked, his form rising back into the air. I could still feel his warmth, but it wasn’t as bad as before.

  “No, I’m actually from Massachusetts.”

  “Then I guess that answers your question, I have met someone from Massachusetts. And where’s that anyway? One of the island kingdoms?”

  “No. It’s somewhere far away.”

  “Interesting, well, I suppose it was nice meeting you,” he said, flaring up again.

  “You still plan to kill me?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a treasure hunter, and I hate treasure hunters.”

  “I’m not a treasure hunter,” I assured him. “I’m an outsider who has sort of become a monk.”

  “Can’t an outsider who has sort of become a monk be a treasure hunter as well?”

  “Sure, anyone can be a treasure hunter, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “I see, so you aren’t interested in the bell?”

  “No, I am interested in the bell, but I’m only interested in ringing it.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t believe you.”

  “What would make you believe me?”

  “That’s a very good question,” the fire spirit said. “I suppose I would have to trust you, to feel like I know you better.”

  “Then how about this, let’s spend the next hour getting to know each other better. What do you say? If in an hour’s time, you don’t feel like you know me better, then…” I swallowed hard. “Then you can kill me, or at least you can try. I’ll fight back.”

  “As anyone should when their life is at risk. As for getting to know each other better…” He mulled this over for a moment, floating back and forth until finally settling on an answer. “I suppose there’s no harm in that. Sure, let’s get to know each other better. That sounds interesting.”

  “I only know one other spirit at the moment, and she’s more of a dakini, so this will be interesting for me as well.”

  “You know a dakini?” The fire spirit lowered to the ground and took a seat, a black mark forming in the soil, the snow around him melting immediately.

  “I sure do.”

  I explained the encounters I’d had with Dema, still trying to think of a way to get the fire spirit to lie to me. I had one hour to figure it out, and since I didn’t have a clock, I would really have to guess when that hour had passed.

  Maybe I could tell him why I was up here, maybe that would help, but that didn’t mean he would let me go after ringing the bell.

  “How long have you been a fire spirit?” I asked, hoping this would keep him talking.

  “I don’t know if that’s something I can tell you,” he said almost bashfully. “A spirit never tells his age to a stranger. I can say this, though: like you, I’m just trying to cultivate good karma. And one can cultivate at any age.”

  “Actually, I have been meaning to ask about this,” I said, also taking a seat in front of the bell. “So you were reborn as a spirit?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then what is a spirit’s relation to the Overworld and the Underworld?”

  “I’m from the Underworld, or at least I was reborn there. I made my way here by promising to do good, and hopefully, I’ll be reborn either here in the Middle Plane, or if I’m lucky and humble, in the Overworld.”

  “And that’s why you are guarding the Hermit Bell?”

  “It is precisely why. This bell was forged by an immortal, one of the first. And because of the value of the relic, both in its material and the power radiating off it, the bell has become a sought after item by treasure hunters.”

  “It has?”

  He nodded. “So I’m here guarding it.”

  “I’m here to ring it,” I told him, “not steal it. I am coming from the Monastery of the Exonerated One, which is now under new, um, ownership. That’s not the right word. The Exonerated One passed, and the only monk left alive was Lhandon, the Exalted One. He is a friend of mine, a dear friend, and together we protected the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom,” I said, nodding to my weapon. “He asked that I come up here to ring the bell; the monastery may be attacked by Madame Mabel in the coming days, and we need all the help we can get.”

  “Why would she care about a monastery?”

  “Good question with a relatively simple answer: I destroyed her crop of lotus, and not an insignificant amount either. I burned all the lotus she had stored in a warehouse, and the only crop she still had in her field. She’s not happy.”

  “Lotus does terrible things to people,” the fire spirit said with a shudder. “The previous treasure hunter I killed was high off lotus when he reached here.”

  “He must have passed right by the monastery then; the pathway to this bell isn’t far from there.”

  “There are other ways to get here. Treasure hunters are clever, I know from experience, and they will scale the side of an icy mountain if it means they’re able to reach a rare relic or treasure. And there are more hunters in these parts now, many more than there were a few centuries ago when I started my guard.”

  “Well, I’m not one of them.”

  “Perhaps that is true.”

  “I don’t believe this to be the case, but Baatar the Eternal Hermit has said that I may be what he calls a Golden One, which if I’m not mistaken is a reborn student, meaning that I’m no different than anyone else. I’m only telling you this so you can understand how little I have in common with these treasure hunters.”

  “A Golden One, huh?”

  I cringed. It sounded way braggy going with this line of reasoning, so I shifted gears. “In fact, I killed Fist of Force, a treasure hunter, to get this ring.” I showed him the ring on my finger.

  “Did you now?” he asked, raising a curious, flaming eyebrow. “The treasure hunter who came here the other day also worked for Fist of Force.”

  “Well he doesn’t work with him any longer, and not because you burnt him to a crisp; the famous treasure hunter is dead.”

  “He may be dead, but he has disciples, and word can spread pretty quickly in these parts.”

  “In these mountains?” I asked, taking a quick glance around.

  “I am not like a lot of these other spirits. Some of them are true gossipers, and many take advantage of the fact that they were given access to this realm. Fornicating, tricking people, spreading rumors. Spirits do all sorts of things once they’re let out of the Underworld.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see that you are not like them,” I said, recalling getting sprayed with cold ‘water’ during an encounter with fornicating spirits.

  “I simply guard the bell to prevent anyone from taking it.”

  “You can ring the bell for me if you’d like,” I said, realizing he had no appendages, “I’m fine with that as well. We just want to let any hermits in the area know that the monastery may be under siege soon, as in the next two days. My plan was to come up here tonight, ring the bell and travel back down. That’s it.”

  “I appreciate that you are being honest with me.”

  “I appreciate your honesty as well. Do you remember what you were before you were a fire spirit?”

  “How could I forget? I was a treasure hunter, which is why I know so much about them. There’s still something about these old relics, these treasures, that makes me excited, but now it isn’t in a greedy way, now it’s in a… way of preservation. I want them to always be around, for people to see where they’ve come from, to respect the past and understand how it affects the future.”

  “So…” I smiled at him. “I guess that makes sense. You’re a treasure hunter, and you were banished to the Underworld when you died.”

  “Oh, I was definitely banished. I killed countless monks, women, children, all in the pursuit of wealth. It took me a couple hundred years to accumulate enough good favor in the Underworld to be allowed to return to the Middle Plane. And however long I’m here, be it a thou
sand years or ten thousand, I will endeavor to stop people from abusing these relics, from razing their pasts.”

  I nodded, an idea coming to me. It was worth a shot, and it would be way better than trying to capture the fire spirit. “Are you interested in joining me?”

  “Joining you?”

  “Full disclosure: I cast a rune that would allow me to capture you, but I don’t want to capture you. I don’t want to fight you. Joining me may help you cultivate karma in a faster way. I could use your help in the upcoming battle, and from there, the Exalted One and I plan to search across the land for the Exonerated One’s reincarnation. I will also try to find some old friends of mine, ones that were transported to this world.”

  “Transported here?”

  “I meant it when I said that I was an outsider. I’m from another world entirely, and I was at a bachelor’s party with my friends when a portal brought me here. Not only do I want to find my friends or those that are still with me,” I said, thinking of both Bobby and Tom, “I want to find out how this portal was opened in the first place.”

  “And you’re asking me to join you in your quest?” he asked, flames flaring from the crown of his head.

  “Yes. I believe we have similar goals. I don’t want to capture you; I don’t want to fight you.”

  “I don’t have the same type of free will that I should have, especially because I have affixed myself to this place for karmic reasons, taking a vow to protect the bell,” he finally said. “But I would like to join you.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have the same kind of free will?”

  “Because of the vow I took, I can’t travel around freely like some of the spirits.”

  “And if I captured you?”

  His fiery cheeks lifted into a smile. “Then I could.”

  “Well, I still have the ability to capture you, but it will be at least an hour before I can use it. All you have to do is answer my question with a lie. Now that you know I’m from Massachusetts, I can ask the same question, and you can simply lie to me.”

  “I see,” he said, his flame settling. “Then that is what we’ll do.”

  “If you’re ever ready to return here, let me know, and I will personally bring you up here and release you. You have my word.”

  “I’ll keep this in mind,” he said, blue flames licking off the place where his upper back should have been. “What is your name, outsider?”

  “Nick Barnette, but you can call me Nick. Yours?”

  He sighed deeply. “I haven’t had a name in a very long time. But before, when I was a treasure hunter, I went by the name Tashi. So you can call me that.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tashi.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Nick.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Change of Plans

  I kept the glass jar next to me as I slept, the top open, just in case the fire spirit wanted to come out. I never got cold that night, as warmth constantly radiated from the jar, and the next morning I wasn’t surprised to find a fire, Tashi floating near it.

  “Just let me eat something and then we’ll be on our way,” I told him.

  “Would you like me to warm anything up for you?”

  “I just have some bread and potatoes…” I looked up at him. “I suppose you could warm the potatoes. That would be nice.”

  I got the potatoes out of my pack and placed them on a small metal plate that Lhandon had packed for me.

  Tashi floated over to them and waved his hand above the two potatoes, both of which warmed up rapidly, cracking at the top.

  “Here we go,” I said as I carefully took one of the potatoes and almost dropped it.

  I let it cool just a little and ate the potatoes, following it up with some bread.

  “There’s a cup around here somewhere,” Tashi said, nodding to a snowdrift about fifteen feet away.

  I dug through the snow until I found the silver cup, which I filled with fresh snow.

  “Nothing like a cup of warm water to start your day. I miss food,” the fire spirit said as he heated up the water.

  “I prefer coffee, but since no one seems to have that here, water will do.”

  “Is that like tea?”

  “Sure, it’s like tea. Only stronger.”

  We started back toward the monastery, Tashi floating in the air beside me. His glass jar was still in the pocket of my robes, and every now and then I would reach my hand in and touch it, noticing that it was warm.

  Tashi was tied to the jar because of the runic spell, but he was also able to float next to me without causing a line of fire between us.

  Probably a good thing.

  As we walked, I told him more about what I had done in Nagchu, and why he would have been incredibly helpful there.

  “Show me your weapon again,” he said, nodding toward the hilt of my sword.

  “Sure,” I told him as I drew the Flaming Thunderbolt, fire sparking off the blackened steel.

  “I wonder what happens if I…” Tashi reached a tendril of flame out and touched the blade, and the fire grew even larger, to the point that I felt like I needed to shield myself from it. There wasn’t any heat coming off it.

  “Interesting,” I told him. “The sword’s fire doesn’t affect me, and if you touch the sword…” I slowly reached my hand to it, my fingers pressing through the flames.

  “It still doesn’t affect you?”

  “Nope,” I said, waving my hand through the fire.

  “This could be incredibly helpful.”

  “Lethal was the word I was looking for.”

  We continued along our way, Tashi telling me about his time as a treasure hunter and some of the great robberies that he’d been part of. I couldn’t keep up with all the names of the places he’d visited, but it sounded fascinating, and sometimes when I looked at him I could see who he was inside, the person within the flames.

  It was nice having a companion to walk with, and at some point, we got onto the topic of reincarnation.

  “Is there an average length a spirit has to stay in the Middle Plane to die and be reincarnated?” I asked him.

  “I wish there was some chart that gave this information out,” he said, “but unfortunately, we are stuck guessing and hoping. Maybe this is by design. Maybe the true power of religion is the hope it instills, not necessarily the blessings it gives. But who am I to comment on the Way?”

  “I don’t know, you’ve seen a lot. For one, you’ve actually been to the Underworld. Maybe you’re the right person to comment on it. Have you practiced any of the paths? I mean, am I asking that right? You know what I’m saying.”

  “I haven’t really chosen a path, to be honest with you. I suppose I am on the Path of the Divine, but if this is the case, I don’t think I’m anything better than a Broken Sword. You?”

  “I have been told that I am a Wheel with a Rusty Axle,” I said.

  “I’m surprised they haven’t said that you are Ink in the Sea.”

  “That’s the next step up, right?”

  He nodded, passing under some icicles hanging from a root that had grown out of the side of a rock wall. The water sizzled as Tashi moved next to it, turning to steam.

  “I’m excited for Lhandon to meet you,” I told him honestly. “He has a spirit that he has captured as well, an ice spirit, but he’s never let the spirit out of the jar. The spirit tried to trick us.”

  “Ice spirits will do that to you, at least the ones I’ve met,” he said with a chuckle. “They can be pretty clever as well.”

  “He would have tricked me if I’d encountered him alone,” I said, recalling the explicit riddle that Lhandon had used to trick the spirit into lying to us.

  “The spirit is under this monk’s power now, so there’s nothing to worry about. It won’t be able to trick you anymore,” Tashi said, a lick of purple flame appearing inside his forearm and drifting up to his head and out the back of his skull.

  “You think?”

  “It might be a blessing,
actually,” he said. “Just think about it. You now have a fire and an ice spirit able to help you along your journey. There isn’t much that fire or ice can’t solve.”

  “True.”

  It was another several hours until we reached the monastery. In that time, Tashi had told me about an interesting way to think of runic characters, something he would show me later. We’d also discussed protecting the monastery, and it was through that discussion that a new idea had come up.

  I recalled what I had seen hovering above Madame Mabel during the dinner we shared. It was worth investigating, but to do so would severely change our plans.

  Lhandon was ecstatic to see me as I reached the courtyard. He stood outside, sifting some vegetable clippings into a compost pile.

  “Roger just went out on a patrol,” he said, “Hopefully he won’t be long. I truly am excited that you are back, Nick. As we’ve been discussing, I thought deeply about a way to restructure the Path of the Divine. Looking through some of the old books in the Exonerated One’s library gave me some ideas as well. I am not ready to reveal what I have begun to develop, but I will be soon.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I believe Altan will be a test for the strength of the system I have conceived. You can be a test as well. You are willing to, are you not?”

  “Of course, as long as it doesn’t involve locking me in a meditation chamber deep in the ground…”

  Lhandon smiled. “That wasn’t quite my plan. But if you must know, I want a way for someone to be able to track their progress, to possibly use a runic power to be able to check themselves, so they can see how far they have advanced along the Path, and to know when they have moved to the next stage. I believe that is the most important. Up until now, we were told by a higher monk if we had reached the next stage. But how did they know? Why can’t these powers be universal? Why can’t someone track their own progress once learning the Path?”

  “Those are all great questions. I look forward to seeing what you’ve come up with.”