Author: Harmon Cooper
Date: 2019-10-21 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Fantasy
Description: Things are only starting to heat up for Nick Barnette. Upon escaping the city of Nagchu, Nick and his companions barely manage to survive a surprise attack from an incredibly powerful being, one clearly not of their world. And that isn’t the only thing after them. With Lhandon’s monastery under siege, Nick’s group must head toward the Darkhan Mountains, to the snow lion village of Dornod, in search of training and to officially reset of the Path of the Divine. Through meditation, combat, and study, Nick and his companions continue to cultivate their powers while in the village of Dornod. Their
Publisher: Boycott Books, LLC

Way of the Immortals

Divine Madness

(Book Two)

By Harmon Cooper

Copyright © 2019 by Harmon Cooper

Copyright © 2019 Boycott Books

Edited by Adam Luopa

Audiobook narrated by Neil Hellegers

www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com

Twitter: @_HarmonCooper

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Book One Recap

Warning: Contains Spoilers

Here’s the link to book one if you missed it: https://geni.us/Way-of-the-Immortals

Way of the Immortals, Book One, begins with Nick giving a toast at his friend Tom’s bachelor party. A portal opens up in the center of the living room, transporting Nick and his buddies to the Kingdom of Lhasa. Assuming that Hugo, Tom, and Evan have died, Nick and Bobby head to the shores, only for Bobby to be captured by Madame Mabel’s men.

Nick escapes into the forest, where he is attacked by a spirit and then a tree. He is later captured by a family of bandits, who plan to sell him as a slave to Madame Mabel’s lotus plantation.

Along the way to the city of Nagchu, Nick and the bandits encounter Evan, who pretends he doesn’t know Nick, betraying him. It is at the slave auction that Nick meets Sona, the head of Madame Mabel’s elite guard. After he becomes a slave, Nick befriends Altan, who is the first to tell him about the Way of the Immortals.

A new power has emerged in Nick, one that he can’t control, a power that allows him to slow down time, albeit briefly. He makes plans to escape the plantation, and an opportunity presents itself. He encounters his guardian angel, also known as his dakini, Dema, during his escape, and is told to go to a monastery.

Along the way to the monastery he meets a tropical bird named Roger, and at the monastery Nick becomes friends with a monk named Lhandon. Unfortunately, the head of the monastery, known as the Exonerated One, decides that Nick needs to better cultivate his meditation practice by being in an isolation chamber. While he is in there, the monastery is attacked by treasure hunters, and Lhandon frees Nick from the meditation chamber.

Lhandon explains that the treasure hunters were seeking information regarding a relic known as the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, and only he knows its true location.

Along the way to locate the relic, the two meet a snow lioness named Saruul. Lhandon also captures an ice spirit, and they are given further instruction by a hermit known as Baatar, who concludes that Nick is likely the Golden One.

Nick and Lhandon encounter the treasure hunters, who have captured Sona, the head of Madame Mabel’s elite guard. Nick fights the treasure hunters, and he is rescued at the last minute by Roger, who stabs the treasure hunter with a knife. Nick acquires the Fist of Force ring, which enhances his strike ability, and he later gets the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom. Roger also brings news that an outsider has appeared on the Island Kingdom of Jonang, which according to Lhandon is one of the potential places where the Exonerated One has reincarnated.

On the way back from the quest, Nick decides to go back to Nagchu with Sona, especially after he hears that Bobby is alive and working for Madame Mabel. Nick finally meets up with Bobby, only to find that Bobby is under the spell of a strong narcotic. Not wanting to join Madame Mabel’s elite guard on a quest to deliver lotus to a warring region, Nick uses his weapon to burn the cargo, as well as parts of the lotus fields. He then escapes with the slave known as Altan to the mountains, back to the monastery.

Assuming that Sona and her elite guard are coming, Nick, Altan, Lhandon, and Roger prepare for war. Lhandon asks Nick to ring a bell that will call any hermit in the area back to the monastery to help with the fight, and along his journey to the bell, Nick encounters a fire spirit named Tashi. Tashi joins their cause, and on the way back down from the mountain Nick comes up with the idea of bringing the fight to Madame Mabel preemptively.

Tashi, a former treasure hunter, knows a secret way to get back to the plantations. Under the cover of night, Nick and his group attack the plantations, where they encounter Madame Mabel, who is actually a demon, and manage to slay her. They also encounter Evan, who shoots Roger with a crossbow.

Nick, Lhandon, Tashi, and Altan escape, vowing to find both Roger and the Exonerated One’s reincarnations.

Stages of the Path of the Divine

Chapter One: Safe Haven

The hit came out of nowhere.

Lhandon cried out just as he was struck in the throat, the portly monk stumbling forward and ultimately falling. Altan stepped to the side, his ankle twisting into an awkward position as the former slave plummeted to the ground.

A man stood on one foot before us, and for a brief moment, my brain scrambled to recognize him. He wore robes that seemed to reflect everything around him, his eyes filled with light, the ends of his mustache floating in the air.

A plume of fire cut through the trees as Tashi flew at him, the fire spirit leaving an inferno in his wake, blue flames licking off his body.

He caught Tashi’s punch, none of the spirit’s fire spreading up the man’s arm.

Our attacker used his momentum to flip Tashi over his shoulder, a trail of flame kicking up on the forest floor, adding light to the cave entrance behind us.

And to think we had just made it through the underground system from Nagchu, practically running through the caverns in the grueling, overnight journey.

We were in the home stretch. And now this?

I dropped my hand to my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, unsheathing the blade.

Pressing off the balls of my feet, I lunged for the man, a sword made of white light appearing in his hand at the very last moment.

He parried my attack, and kicked me in the gut, sending me stumbling away.

I fell backward over Lhandon’s body, the monk out cold.

I could hear Altan whimpering about his ankle, trying to get back to his feet, Tashi already on the attack again.

“I’ve got him, Nick!” the fire spirit shouted as he twisted forward.

Our attacker brought his sword back and sliced right through Tashi’s fiery body. Split in two, Tashi’s form crashed into a couple trees, fire spreading up their trunks.

Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t human, not with the ability to cut through Tashi.

And with Lhandon passed out, Altan down, and Tashi slowly piecing himself back together, it was up to me to save the group.

The man turned to me, his eyes blazing, a sinister smile on his face.

“Goh-Mo,” I whispered, closing my eyes as I cast the Rune of Distortion that Lhandon had taught me. Starting from the bottom, I quickly made a vertical line with a curl and an angled box.

I didn’t know if it would work, but I knew if we were going to get out of here alive, distorting the man’s perception may be our only way forward.

I let the rune settle and blinked my eyes open, the man still standing before me, a crooked smile on his face.

No effect.

“Shit,” I said under my breath, bringing my sword to the ready.

And just at that moment, just as the man and I were about to meet, a panther tore out of the fire, smashing into him. His form vanished into a cloud of mist.

The panther turned to me and sat on its haunches. The big cat brought its paw to its mouth, licking its nails while it observed me.

“Thank you,” I told the creature, remembering my first hour in the Kingdom of Lhasa, how the boar had saved me and later…

It was the same man who had attacked me back then.

The thought struck just about the time the panther’s eyes twitched, the huge feline hunching forward, growling and hissing at me.

The panther started to sniff, looking around as if there was a firefly dancing over its head. It turned and ran straight into a tree, and from there, straight into the fire that was now spreading.

“Come on,” I told Lhandon, nudging him with my foot as I sheathed my blade.

When that didn’t work I looked to Altan, who was limping over toward me, wincing with every step.

“I’ll carry him.” I took a deep breath in, trying to figure out how I was going to deadlift the heavy monk.

My stamina and strength were heightened here in Lhasa, but I didn’t know if I was going to be able to lift a three-hundred-pound man over my shoulders.

Grunting, I kneeled before him and dragged one of his arms over my shoulder, putting my other hand over his thigh.

I started to right myself, the muscles on the side of my body tensing as I finally got him up, where I was able to shift him over my shoulder.

And not a moment too soon.

A tree fell where Lhandon had just been laying, sending embers into the air, Altan barely making it around the tree.

“This way, Nick,” Altan said, limping over to Tashi. The fire spirit was nearly stitched back up. He sat on the ground, his hand on his forehead.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“I think.” The fire spirit bowed his head in shame. “Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.”

“Let’s discuss it later, we have to keep moving.”

“How did you defeat him?” Tashi asked, looking to me, white flames lifting off his eyebrows.

“I’m not quite sure just yet, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch.”

We hadn’t made it very far from the fire when a root tore from the soil, going for Altan’s good foot. The former slave smacked face-first into the dirt, his mouth agape as he rolled to the side just in time to avoid another limb.

“I’ll handle this!” Tashi pressed behind us, wings of fire lifting from his form as he created a protective barrier.

“Of course the trees are trying to attack us,” I said, a bit haggard now from carrying Lhandon.

I sucked in a deep breath and continued forward, my focus on the spot just a few feet in front of me to avoid any more roots lifting from the soil.

It made sense that the forest wasn’t happy about our little fire episode, and while I hadn’t encountered aggressive foliage since my first night in Lhasa, I knew it was par for the course.

I glanced over my shoulder to see that Altan was slowly lifting from the ground.

He looked up at me and started to give me the thumbs up.

Another root shot out of the fire, grabbed me by the knee and pulled me down.

I would have received a face full of hardened soil had it not been for the cushioning provided by Lhandon’s body, the poor monk taking the brunt of the hit.

He let out a grunt; Tashi came forward with a fiery chop that cut through the root.

“Not much further,” the fire spirit said, raising even more flames around us.

Another group of limbs shot through the fire at us; Tashi spun over our heads, chopping through the roots before they could reach us.

I could feel the heat of the flames, the early morning sky above now blotted out by smoke. My robes were drenched, Lhandon’s weight heavy on my shoulder as we continued forward.

My only hope was that Sona wasn’t waiting for us at the monastery.

I gulped, pressing forward, suddenly missing Roger in that moment, whom we could have sent ahead to make sure no one was waiting for us.

To see him die like that, shot out of the sky…

The muscles in my legs shrieked, my calves knotting up.

I took an even deeper breath in, mentally pushing the breath down to my feet, imagining my veins expanding as the blood circulated through my system.

The periphery was a blur of red and orange, the path before me unknown, above me only smoke. Regardless, I kept my focus on my breath, a running meditation of sorts.

My body still hurt, but I was less attached to the pain than I had been moments ago.

No, I was somewhere else entirely, in Western Massachusetts now, a morning jog at the foothills of the Berkshires, the air cold and wet rather than dry and scorching, blue mountains on the horizon.

I saw Roger flying next to me, the tropical bird twisting up and dipping back down onto the path, giving me a point to follow as I continued forward.

I was a child running over to Bobby’s house to play video games.

I was an adult, on a train moving through the Swiss Alps.

I was in Worcester, walking downtown with a bag of donuts past vagabonds with opioid eyes.

Trees started to collapse all around me, thoughts spinning around my head as I focused on reaching the monastery, on following my Roger hallucination.

It was only when I broke out of the forest that I realized how far I’d come, Altan a good hundred feet back, Tashi still conducting the inferno. I didn’t recognize where we were, only that it was a field of high grass, easily up to my chest.

Altan finally reached me, the man practically dragging his injured ankle.

“Did we take a wrong turn?” I looked around, still noticing the mountains in the distance, not able to judge how far away from them we were.

“Your fire spirit is clever,” he said, sucking in deep breaths of air.

“Why do you say that?”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm. “If anyone sees the blackened path caused by the fire, they will come here rather than our true location. The monastery is just over that ridge, but it is hidden by the tall grass. In fact, you wouldn’t see it unless you climbed up to the ridge and made your way through a rocky pass. Lhandon showed it to me; the monks use this area to gather straw for baskets and other items.”

“So we’re almost there?” I asked, my vision blurring momentarily.

“Almost. Just follow me.”

Tashi caught up to us as we made our way up the ridge, my muscles straining under Lhandon’s added weight until I remembered to focus on my breath.

The fire spirit sailed over us.

He moved down the mountain pass and toward the monastery, making sure it was secure.

Even though I was breathing deeply, each step forward felt heavier than the last, every fiber in my body straining as I continued forward.

We made it around a bend, my muscles screaming, my vision darkening. I saw the entrance to the monastery, the long row of steps, the blue flags acting as railings.

I reached the first stone step and took a knee.

Everything went black.

Chapter Two: Hermits and Ice Spirits

Run.

A force moved toward me, ruffling the foliage.

A mist sat over the ground, obscuring my feet, preventing me from seeing where I was going.

Lightning struck a tree to my left, a branch igniting, a terrible roar behind me.

I tripped and fell, crying out as I hit the ground.

I turned just in time to see the panther emerge from the mist, the beast slowly moving toward me, its shoulders going up and down as its form began to morph…

“I knew it was you,” I said, smiling at the woman who stood before me. She had flowing white hair, elven ears, and gray robes that draped over her hands, the ends dragging on the ground.

She reached out to me, her fingers grazing my cheek...

Dema.

I awoke with a cough.

With a deep exhale I rolled to the side, trying to get my bearings, trying to understand where I was.

The room was dark, a candle in the hallway providing light.

It felt so familiar, it felt like…

“Hello?” I called out, wincing as I finally sat up.

It took me a moment, but I traced up the rune for Healing Hand, whispering the word Lha-Mo as I did so. For this rune, I started at the top and formed a square, followed by a curved line, a leg jutting off that line, and finally the two slash marks to the right of the curl, the top one passing through the line.

A rejuvenating energy moved through me.

I instantly felt better, refreshed.

“Hello?” I called out again, now recognizing my surroundings. I was in my room in the monastery, the same place where I’d had my first conversation with Lhandon.

“Nick?” I heard Altan call from the hallway.

He was accompanied by a scraping noise, the man dragging his foot on the ground as he came to me.

“Let me heal that,” I said as I met him at the door.

“Yes, please,” he said with a bow.

I ran my hands over his ankle. Altan let out a sigh of relief accompanied by a popping sound as his wound mended. It was then that I realized that I was only wearing a pair of shorts, my robes completely removed.

“Sorry, I just woke up,” I started to tell him.

“Nonsense. Get dressed, and meet me downstairs. I will warm up the soup we had for dinner.”

“You don’t have to trouble yourself.”

“It is good to get something in your stomach. You’ve been out for almost a day.”

“Almost a day?”

He nodded. “I’ll tell Lhandon you are awake. He is in the library below.”

“And Tashi?”

“Last I saw, he was outside hanging with the ice spirit.”

“I never did get the ice spirit’s name,” I said, recalling the spirit Lhandon had tricked with his Rune of Inquiry.

“Gansukh.”

“Good to know.”

Once I was in a set of freshly pressed robes, I made my way downstairs to find a clay bowl of soup waiting for me, along with a piece of flatbread.

“I’m so glad to see that you are okay,” Lhandon said, already seated at the table, eyeing my food.

“Would you like some as well?” I asked him.

“No, no, I’m fine. I’ve had my fair share,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Were there any disturbances while we were gone?”

“The place was pretty quiet, according to Gansukh. It does worry me that Sona has not tried to come here, but maybe she assumes we wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back here.”

“If she wasn’t planning to come here before, she’ll definitely be planning to come after she learns what happened back in Nagchu,” I said as I went for my soup.

“Yes, unfortunately. Then again, maybe things will be restructured there. Without Madame Mabel, their forces may not have the motivation to come after us.”

“Aside from those that we slew, and the fact that Evan is still there, I highly doubt that.”

Lhandon frowned. “Perhaps I should start seeing the truth in people, rather than only looking for the good. What happened back at the cave, anyway? All I remember is getting hit by something, and then waking up here. I’ve already heard Altan and Tashi’s perspectives, but I would like to know yours as well.”

Altan returned to the room with little glasses of tea, which he set before us. After thanking him, I continued: “We were attacked by the same spirit that attacked me when I first arrived here in Lhasa, a guy in robes with a mustache. He also had a sword made of light.”

“I recall you mentioning that spirit. You said it was right after you escaped Madame Mabel’s patrol, correct?”

“That’s right,” I told him as I took a bite of the bread. “Near the Sea of Lhasa. The man is incredibly powerful; he may have finished me too, if it hadn’t been for a wild boar that took him out. But I know who it was now.”

“The man or the boar?”

“The boar. It was my guardian angel, my dakini, Dema. I believe she was the panther that saved us as well.”

One of Lhandon’s eyebrows lifted. “If no one here was able to hurt the man, as Tashi explained it to me, yet she was able to take him out by possessing a woodland creature, then that can only mean one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked after he paused, the monk clearly hoping I would finish his sentence.

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know. I’m not from here, remember.”

“Massachusetts. I remember,” Lhandon said, both of us laughing. “The man who attacked when you first arrived and the man who attacked all of us at the exit of the cave was a spirit from one of the other planes.”

“Just like Dema, huh?”

“That’s right. But I don’t know yet which plane this spirit was from.”

“Probably the Underworld. Dema said it was a powerful sorcerer who opened the portal, the sorcerer must have been from the Overworld.”

“If what your dakini said is true, that a being from a different world brought you and your friends here, it would follow that someone else is trying to stop you.” He shook his head. “I’m sure it is much more complicated than that. But from what I can surmise, and this is just me thinking out loud here, someone helped bring you here to change our world, the Plane of Existence. Of course, there are those who would prefer things not to be changed, which leads me to agree with you that the spirit who attacked us was from the Underworld.”

“Got it. So someone from ‘up there’ brought us, and someone from ‘down there’ is trying to stop us. In particular, they’re trying to stop me.”

“That’s what it seems like to me,” he said after a long pause.

I tore off a piece of bread and dipped it in the soup. “I’ll try to communicate with her as best I can, but she seems to come to me at random times, like the dream I had last night.”

“I see…”

“I don’t think she can take the possession for very long, which is why the panther started to attack me back at the cave. Anyway, all this is good to know. It’s better to know that a spirit from another world is hunting me than it is to be oblivious to it. We just need to confirm it is indeed the Underworld, and even if it seems clear, we need to figure out why.”

Lhandon laughed. “Great, we can get on that right after we protect the monastery, find two reincarnations, and hopefully, some of your friends.”

“Our to-do list keeps growing.”

“Yes it does,” he said, pressing away from the table. He stopped and returned his gaze to me. “How did we escape the cave, anyway? I know you carried me, but what happened to the panther?”

“I cast Rune of Distortion, which affected the panther after it attacked the man from the Underworld. Other than that, we ran, and I carried you.”

“Thank you for that. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

“It’s fine, you were the first person the spirit struck.”

“Anyway, I need to get back to the library. There are a few more things I would like to look up before I go to sleep.”

“Any progress on bettering the Path of the Divine?” I asked him once he reached the doorway.

“We shall soon see.”

I stepped out to the courtyard, passing by an apple tree as I made my way toward Tashi and Gansukh, the ice spirit.

It was a breezeless night, cold in a way that reminded me of September in Worcester, winter on the horizon. The smell of burning wood met my nostrils, my eyes darting to the chimney of the monastery’s wood-burning fireplace.

Tashi turned to me, a molten smile on his face. “Glad to see you’re finally awake.”

“That I am,” I said as I stepped up to the fire spirit. “Unfortunately, I’ve slept through the day, which means I might be up tonight.”

“It’s like you are keeping the hours of a spirit,” Gansukh commented, the spirit’s voice androgynous to the point that I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

“Not by choice.”

“Most things aren’t,” the ice spirit said, its form slowly swinging the air. “Take the fact that I am an indentured servant to a monk.”

“We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Nick; I’m guessing that Tashi has informed you a little about who I am.”

“He has, and what a sorrowful tale! There you were with your friends, enjoying an innocent bachelor party when you were transported to Lhasa, attacked by a sea dragon, imprisoned by bandits, sold into slavery, tossed into a deep meditation chamber, and eventually told that you may be the Golden One. Notice my emphasis on may; I don’t believe in these types of prophecies.”

“You aren’t the only one. And sorry for just running out so quickly last time, after asking you to guard the place. We were sort of in a hurry and…” I shrugged. “Now that I think back, I really don’t know why we were in such a hurry, aside from the fact that we thought we were going to get attacked.”

“The fear of violence can be quite inspiring,” Gansukh said with what seemed like a wink.

“We were just discussing what we would do, or better, what we will do once they get here,” Tashi said, cutting right to the chase. “Personally, I think it is best to not attack them all at once.”

“Agreed,” I said, imagining Sona and her femme fatales descending upon the monastery. “We could do it similarly to how you and I fought back at the plantation. A surprise attack would be to our advantage.”

Tashi nodded. “Gansukh will go first, and I’ll come in as backup. It is better this way. Better to have a trick or two up our sleeve.”

“I wish I had sleeves,” Gansukh said, looking down at its icy arms. “Sure, it’s nice being a spirit and all, but I used to love wearing clothing. Now I just go around like this. How much karma do I have to cultivate to get some pants around here?”

“You are asking the wrong person,” I said, the corners of my cheeks lifting into a grin.

“Speaking of tricks, it is rather unfortunate that you and Lhandon tricked me,” the ice spirit said, its face twisting into a pout. “But I suppose there are worse masters I could have.”

“I am sure that Lhandon would release you,” I told it, “if you asked him nicely.”

“Perhaps, but being here is better than roaming around some of the old caves I frequented over the last couple hundred years. You two would hate caves. Especially you, Tashi. Just imagine a damp, smelly place filled with skeletons and animal shit. Rats, bats, bears, snakes, hidden treasure that I can’t do anything about because it’s not like I’m allowed to sell the stuff. How many ice spirits did you see floating around Nagchu hawking treasure?”

“None,” I told the spirit.

“Exactly. And that’s aside from the fact that no one ever came to the cave I was stuck in.”

“Then why did you stay in the cave?”  I asked as I took a seat before a fire pit. “Why didn’t you just leave?”

Tashi ignited a blackened piece of wood; the flames rose into the air and settled, creating just enough warmth to prevent the chill radiating off Gansukh from making its way over to me.

“I was imprisoned there because of a rune, not unlike the rune that the fat monk used to turn me into his slave.”

“Why were you imprisoned?”

I could tell by the way that Tashi shook his head at me that I shouldn’t have asked this question.

“Why?” Gansukh asked, growing flustered. “Because a hermit, who clearly didn’t have a sense of humor and who certainly hadn’t taken the chance to get to know me, imprisoned me there because he thought I was a threat. And why would anyone think that I’m a threat?” the spirit asked, lifting into the air, icicles falling off its body and shattering against the stone pavement.

“I’m pretty sure you threatened us back in the cave,” I reminded Gansukh.

“What? Threatened?” it laughed nervously. “No, no, Nick, you’ve got me all wrong. I was playing a game. I wasn’t going to do anything like kill you both, hoping to develop enough negative karma to break the bonds keeping me in the cave system. No, nothing like that! I would never do anything like that!”

“That was your plan, huh?” I asked the ice spirit, trying to hide the skepticism in my voice.

“I was sent back here to cultivate good karma with the hopes of one day returning, just like Tashi over here.”

“We went about our cultivation in very different ways,” the fire spirit reminded Gansukh.

“So what if I got into a little bit of mischief? I was a milkmaid in my previous life and not a very good one at that. In fact, that’s why I got killed.”

“Because you were bad at milking cows?” I asked.

“Not quite. I was killed because I was stealing the milk. They didn’t need that much milk, and I had a family to feed, so I stole some of it. And yes, I was also bad at milking cows. I never could get the rhythm right,” the ice spirit said, pantomiming milking a cow. “I never had a lot of rhythm.”

“So you are female then?”

“Does it matter? I could have any genitalia I want in this form, so I choose to have neither. There is nothing anatomically correct about me. But to answer your original question regarding my plan, I figured if I developed enough negative karma by terrorizing people that came into my cave and killing them, I would get sent back to the Underworld, where I could then go through the tasks and trials of showing I was truly worthy to return here. You know the drill,” it said to Tashi, the fire spirit merely shaking his head. “Then I’d get sent back here, do it right the next time, and not go after a monk and get stuck in a cave. I guess you could say I was playing the long game.”

“The long game, huh?” I smirked at the way Ganuskh threw its icy arms into the air and shrugged.

“It may sound funny to you, but it sucks living in a cave for an extended period of time. If you take anything away from this conversation, take that part.”

“Let me get this straight: you were just being a mischievous spirit when you messed with the wrong monk, who imprisoned you in a cave. Your plan was to kill people to develop enough negative karma that you could be sent back to the Underworld, where you could then cultivate enough karma there—and I don’t even know how you would do that, but that’s another conversation entirely—to then come back here and do the right thing on your next visit.”

“What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“Admit that you are a trickster, Gansukh,” Tashi said, clearly having heard the story once or twice before.

“Me? A trickster? I’m not a trickster! I like to entertain people, to keep them on their toes by forcing them to examine themselves and question their own belief systems, so they can then reach a new stage of understanding that could help better them on the Path of the Divine. Honest. But a trickster? No, sir, you have the wrong ice spirit,” Gansukh said, clearly lying through its teeth.

“Keep telling yourself that,” I told Gansukh as a breeze picked up, whipping through the trees, a few of the apples falling to the ground.

“Something’s coming.” Tashi’s shoulders flared up, fiery muscles appearing on his arms.

“Am I the only one that thinks it’s awesome that you have fire muscles?” Gansukh asked, also growing in size, forming icy spikes along its arms.

“Quiet,” Tashi told his counterpart.

I brought my fists to the ready, wishing I’d grabbed my sword back in my room.

As the breeze continued to swirl around us, I cast up Gyal-Ma, the rune that allowed me to absorb three strikes.

A tornado of wind spun over our heads, my robes beating against my body, Tashi swelling in size.

The gust of wind lifted and formed into a funnel before completely dissipating.

A man suddenly stood before us, a giant bag flung over his shoulder.

He wore tattered monk’s robes, his shoulders bony, his face gaunt, a long beard hanging from his chin, braided with bits of ribbon.

“I got the invitation,” the old man said, a grin on his face.

“The invitation?” I asked, still ready to engage him.

“The Hermit Bell,” Tashi said, his form slowly starting to shrink in size.

“Yes, the Hermit Bell,” the old man said. “Someone rang it. At least, I thought I heard the bell. Enough with the introductions. Where’s Lhandon?”

“The Exalted One is in his study,” Tashi told him.

The hermit considered this statement for a moment. “I suppose that is a good name for him, although I was going to suggest Jewel of Innate Knowledge.”

“I have other names I would like to give him,” Gansukh said under its breath.

“Who are you again?” I asked, still not able to place the hermit’s face.

“So quickly you forget the time you soiled my summer cave!”

“Soiled?”

“Yes, you, the lioness, making love in the moonlight,” he shook his head.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, suddenly realizing where I’d seen the man before. His face had appeared in the fire, where he’d promised Lhandon that he would visit the monastery at some point. “Baatar, right?”

“Nice to meet you again,” Baatar said with a short bow. “Now, take me to Lhandon. We have plenty to discuss, including the fact that Lady Mabel’s troops will be here by nightfall tomorrow. I saw them on my flight over here.” He shifted his bag to his other shoulder, turning toward the monastery. “Quickly, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Chapter Three: Hermit Transmission

I led Baatar down to the library, where we found Lhandon sitting under the chandelier, books open all around him. One of them featured a poorly drawn human figure with colored lines moving through the man’s body; another book actually had a flicker of energy radiating off it.

The portly monk was deep in thought, and it took him a second to look up and see us standing there.

“Baatar?” Lhandon stood immediately and bowed his head, some of the documents he’d been looking through nearly falling to the floor.

“I told you I would come at some point,” the hermit said, taking a look around the library. He let out a deep, satisfying yawn. “I have much to discuss with you and this basement is very cozy. May we use the room upstairs?”

“Why, of course!” Lhandon said as he tidied up his workspace.

“It is your monastery now, so it is proper that I ask.”

“No need, Eternal Hermit,” he said as he joined us at the entrance to the room. “Whenever you are prepared for a transmission or a teaching, the monastery is open to receive it.”

“Exalted One,” Baatar said, letting Lhandon pass.

“Yes, thank you.”

Lhandon turned to me once we reached the main prayer hall, asking me to grab Altan.

“Will do.”

“Tashi and Gansukh may benefit from this transmission too,” Lhandon called after me.

Once I gathered everyone, we returned to the large prayer space with its high ceilings and elaborate stained-glass backlit by the moon, showcasing images of meditating monks and what I assumed was ancient symbolry. The light of a bright candle danced in the corner, the sweet scent of sandalwood wafting in the air.

Lhandon and Baatar stood at the front of the room, Lhandon with his hands behind his back as he whispered to the hermit.

“I didn’t mean for this to turn into such an affair,” Bataar said once we were all settled before him, “but I suppose that will be fine.”

Lhandon joined us as the hermit took a set of steps to a raised dais at the front of the room, a calm look on his face. The backpack that had been slung over his shoulder when he arrived was next to him, the top open. He reached inside and placed a large book on a cushion that sat before him.

Once he was situated, Baatar cleared his throat and smiled out at us. “I suppose I should start by saying I’m glad to see that advancements have been made here. When I first met the two of you in my cave, I didn’t know how far this would go, nor did I know that you would be able to obtain the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, a boon in itself. Now that Lhandon has briefed me on what has happened since, I’m even more interested to see how this plays out. So interested, in fact, that I would like to be part of it.”

“Thank you, Eternal Hermit,” Lhandon said with a bow. Altan followed suit and I copied both of them.

I didn’t know how the fire and ice spirits would react, but Gansukh didn’t say anything snarky, so I figured they were bowing as well.

“You have quite an extensive library downstairs,” he told Lhandon, “but there are books that you are missing. Before I delve into an explanation of the Way of the Immortals, and how it relates to Nick’s power, I need to know one thing.”

“Anything,” Lhandon said under his breath.

“How old are the two of you?” Baatar asked the spirits behind us.

“I died a thousand years ago,” Tashi said.

“Four hundred years ago,” said Gansukh.

“Since you are the older of the two,” Bataar said as he looked at Tashi, flames reflecting off his eyes, “what have you told them thus far?”

“I told them how the characters used for runes were based on ancient forms of combat.”

“Good, and did you tell them where those forms of combat came from?”

“The Immortals.”

“And did you tell them who the Immortals were?”

“No,” Tashi finally said.

“Then that is where I will start. Nick, your power comes from the fact that you passed through a portal from your world to our world. You aren’t the only one that has received a power. The four people you passed the portal with also received the power.”

“They did?” I asked.

“I believe so, yes. And I will explain why. Over two thousand years ago, five people passed from your world to ours. These were the original Immortals, which the various paths were based upon.”

“Were they considered Golden Ones?”

Baatar nodded. “They invented the term, so sure, you could call them that, but most people simply called them the Immortals.”

“My dakini said there was only one.”

“And perhaps to her, there was only one true Golden One, but if you asked a different dakini, they would likely say a different Immortal was the Golden One. So for our purposes, we’ll call them all Golden Ones, or simply, Immortals. As I was saying, there were five of them, and each was gifted a unique power. Padme Lung, a woman, was able to bring things into reality. She generally could be found with Ganbold, who was a master of combat, and Kenzo, an intellect who was a master of script, able to give power to characters.”

“And what about the other two?” I asked. “You said there were five, right?”

“That is one thing that is different from what happened between you, and the people you came with. At that time, over two thousand years ago, there were two portals that opened up. Padme Lung, Kenzo, and Ganbold came together. The other two came at a separate time, and their rifts tore what we now know as Lhasa and the greater kingdoms apart. The final two who came were Thupten, who was able to control people’s minds and introduce corruption to them, and Misake, who was able to whisper to plants and animals, the woman using her power to find new ways to harvest narcotics and cause plagues.”

“And they warred with one another?”

“That they did. Eventually, Padme Lung, Kenzo, and Ganbold overcame Thupten and Misake. However, the damage had already been done, and while the two were banished to the Underworld, they were still hailed as Immortals because of their powers. Because they were venerated, various sects started to worship them, harvesting what we now know as negative karma.”

I nodded, recalling Sona mentioning negative karma a couple times.

“Thus, the last two thousand plus years have been a battle between light and darkness, good and evil. And as it goes, people have forgotten many of the details of these battles, aside from the heroic songs, and more importantly, the origins of the Immortals have faded with time, the knowledge only held by a select few. I’m guessing you didn’t know all of the Immortals,” he said, looking to Tashi and Gansukh.

“No,” Gansukh said.

“Never their names, only their deeds,” came Tashi’s reply.

“The knowledge has been lost. This book,” he said, picking up the tome that he’d laid out on the cushion, “is one of the only ones in existence that details what it was like when the five were active, and their battles against one another, as well as some of the lore of that time. I have brought this copy for you, Lhandon.”

“Thank you, Eternal Hermit,” Lhandon said, the excitement of receiving such an important work making him tremble. He bowed for what seemed like a full minute.

“It is called the Book of the Immortals, and for purposes that may soon become clear, I have also produced a handwritten copy that I’ve hidden away. Have you ever thought about the kingdoms of this world, and why there are five?”

I looked to Lhandon, expecting him to answer. He merely shook his head. “All I know is the story of the five friends.”

“Ah, the creation of the kingdoms based on animals, yes, that is a common story,” Bataar said. “What about you, fire spirit?”

“Lore,” Tashi said.

“It would make sense. The original Immortals came a thousand years before you were born,” Baatar surmised. “But to be clear: the five kingdoms were established as an early peace treaty between the Immortals. Of course, the treaty ultimately failed, yet the countries remained. Thupten the Corrupted established this kingdom, the Kingdom of Lhasa; Misake the Whisperer established the Kingdom of Rinpunga; Ganbold the Strong established the Island Kingdom of Jonang; Padme Lung the Virtuous established the Kingdom of Paro; and finally, Kenzo the Written established the Island Kingdom of Tsirang.”

Baatar paused, allowing a moment for all of this to sink in. “Now, just because they established these kingdoms doesn’t mean they have gone on to uphold their virtues. Quite the opposite, for that matter. Sure, the Kingdom of Lhasa is corrupt, but the Kingdom of Paro isn’t much different. All the kingdoms have their various levels of deceit and corruption, social decay, if you will, which is why so many people have taken an interest in your appearance. Your friends as well.”

I nodded.

The dots were starting to connect, and while I wasn’t sure of how I would correct the course that this situation seemed to be careening toward, I was ready at that moment to do my best.

I was also curious as to what powers the others had been given.

If Bobby had a power, I hadn’t seen it when I met him. The only thing I witnessed was his slow spiral down into addiction. Perhaps Evan had some sort of marksmanship ability, considering he was able to kill Roger so easily.

I squeezed my fists together thinking of Evan. I had plenty of other things to do, but there would be a time for revenge, and regardless of who I was supposed to be in this world, I would take that opportunity.

“What I told you here, and what you will find in this book, should help you better understand your role as leader of the monastery,” he said to Lhandon, “and your role as one of the rare beings who has passed through this portal,” he said to me. “I realize this is a lot of information, so to make room for it inside our minds, I would like to take this moment to meditate with the five of you using a technique I have developed over the last two years. Let’s allow this information to sink in, and then we will continue our discussion.”

“Breathe to the back of your skull, then down to your stomach. Hold it and repeat. While you do so, imagine you are breathing through a tunnel that weaves through your mind.  It seems simple enough, but your mind has probably wandered in the amount of time it is taking me to give you these instructions.”

I sat next to Lhandon with my eyes closed, doing what Baatar suggested.

At times, I would think that I had it, that the breathing technique was working, my focus strengthening, my thoughts absent.

But then I would recall something, perhaps the weeks I spent locked up underground, or a memory from my past like jogging through the streets of Worcester, somehow always ending up at Bancroft Tower, and my mindfulness would dissipate.

Even as Baatar instructed us, I couldn’t help but think of my friends, how a part of this journey was about them, and how it had already grown into something larger than friendship.

I focused deeper and a barrage of fleeting images came to me, people pinned to trees, tropical fauna, epic rainstorms, brightly colored fruits.

I stopped, letting these thoughts play out again, trying to understand where they came from, and what I was seeing.

I’d never been somewhere tropical before; I couldn’t help but think that what I was foreseeing was the Island Kingdom of Jonang. The kingdom was clearly where we were heading next, in search of the Exonerated One’s reincarnation, and to see if the rumor that Hugo was there could possibly be true.

Was this a glimpse of what was to come?

“Focus on the breath, one-pointed mind, a gentle, stale breeze blowing over the shell of a snail, the limbs of the tree motionless,” Baatar said, the hermit taking in deep, slow breaths. “All the way to the backs of your skulls, spirit and man alike.”

I tried to imagine my breath as an energy, the inside of my nostrils flaring open, my breath lightly flickering at the back of my eyeballs, entering my brain, and from there circulating out, cascading all the way down to my stomach, where I held it in for a moment before letting it out.

And just like that, I was back to examining my thoughts.

So if the Immortals had come two thousand years ago, and there was a second attempt to bring more from our world through a portal that had failed a thousand years ago, then it was really a toss-up as to how the people I had come here with would handle these roles.

And no one had said anything yet about any of these people actually going back to the world from whence they came, which was a concern of mine.

I still wasn’t convinced that I was a savior type, and if someone had flat-out asked me what I would do to better Lhasa, aside from ending slavery, I didn’t really have an answer. I didn’t know enough about the place to make a judgment.

But what was I doing?

I let this thought bounce around inside my skull for a moment as I remembered some of the fights that I’d been in, from Fist of Force to the battle against the catmen, to the ultimate showdown at Mabel’s Plantation.

What was I actually accomplishing by going around stirring up trouble, even if the trouble I stirred up had a purpose, even if the trouble came to me?

I shuddered, trying to return to a more meditative state, one that wasn’t too critical of the actions I’d taken in my past.

My thoughts drifted to the snow lioness, Saruul, and how brief our time together had been, how there was an instant connection between us. I still knew we would meet again at some point, I just didn’t know when.

“Focus,” Baatar said, his voice breaking through the surface of my mind.

I blinked my eyes open to see that he was looking directly at me.

“Sorry,” I said under my breath.

“Care to tell us what you are thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Does it have anything to do with a lioness whom you just so happened to fornicate with in my summer cave?”

I saw Lhandon smile out of the corner of my eye. He quickly tucked his chin to his chest and focused again on his breath.

“Among other things,” I finally said, hearing Gansukh mumble something to Tashi.

“If you want to see your snow lioness so bad, why don’t you call upon her?”

“It doesn’t seem to be the appropriate thing to do at the moment,” I told the hermit. “And that’s not the only thing on my mind right now.”

“So your mind is just jumping from thought to thought, never truly examining anything, correct?”

“I don’t know if I would say it isn’t truly examining things. I just think about a lot of things at the same time, and it goes back and forth. I think that it’s natural.”

“It is indeed natural,” Baatar said with a toothy grin, “and it is precisely why you can’t control your power. You have been given a unique power here, have you not?”

I felt defeated in that moment, my thoughts echoing to the high ceilings of the monastery, the wood hardly absorbing the mental chatter. The things I thought came right back down to me, reverberating in my head. I suddenly felt foolish for not knowing more about my power, for thinking about Saruul, for not being able to focus on my breath.

The Eternal Hermit picked up on this almost immediately.

“My intention is not to put you on the spot, Nick,” he began, “because that won’t help you improve your practice, to cultivate the Power. As I once told you before, you have all the makings of a Golden One, but the second part of that sentence, the part that I didn’t mention at the time, is that your friends do as well. Before you can make true change in Lhasa and the kingdoms beyond, if this is indeed what you plan to do, you have to make a true change within yourself. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have desires, as I don’t believe in celibacy in promoting enlightenment. Only, you should recognize your desire as a desire, and your memory or thought as a memory or thought, and move on.”

He cleared his throat, taking a deep breath in.

It was another minute or so before he spoke again.

“Next time you try this meditative practice, which I hope you do before you go to bed tonight, I would like you to label your thoughts and ideas as they come to you. It seems trivial to think something, and then just mentally say the word ‘thought,’ or miss someone and say ‘remembering,’ but it will help you codify, and later allow you to swiftly silence the things you are thinking. True stability is required for you to utilize your power, of this I am sure.”

“But how?” I asked, feeling like it was just Baatar and me now.

“How does your ability currently come about?”

“It just comes when I’m in trouble, or when I need it. But it isn’t reliable. Like yesterday, it didn’t activate once we were ambushed.”

“I see, and I’d like you to tell me about this ambush later,” Baatar said, looking to Lhandon.

“Certainly, Eternal Hermit.”

He returned his focus to me. “As easy as it sounds, it is incredibly difficult, Nick: you must learn to turn it off and on. Would you like to be able to control it?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “There have already been times that having control of it would have been incredibly helpful.”

And at that moment I had a sinking feeling in my chest as I remembered seeing Roger shot out of the air, the bird spiraling toward the ground.

If only I had gotten to him in time; if only I had been able to completely control reality to the point that I could have prevented Evan from firing on him.

“That won’t help you,” he said, noticing that my fists had begun to tighten, my knuckles turning white.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you want to know how to control your power, the answer is simple yet incredibly complex: you first need to learn to control yourself, and I’m not talking about just your emotions. You are going to need to learn how to master the various systems inside your body, such as your circulation. Can you slow your heart rate on command? Can you increase the warmth of your skin? These are all things that you’re going to have to practice, among others. I believe Lhandon here will be able to help you as he develops the system to better codify the Path of the Divine, but I must be honest with you, Exalted One…”

Lhandon looked up to the hermit, a thin smile on his face. “Yes?”

“I don’t think codifying the Path of the Divine is something that can actually be done, though saying that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that you can do it.”

Lhandon bit his lip.

“The problem with turning what we do into a truly structured cultivation system is the karmic and meditative nature associated with the Path. Perhaps one of the other paths could be codified more easily. I don’t know. But I think the Path of the Divine—which is, in my opinion, the best path for all the kingdoms—will be a challenge.”

“I understand, Eternal Monk,” Lhandon said, bowing his head slightly. His ponytail slid to the side, now halfway tucked under his chin.

“But as I said, that doesn’t mean I don’t think you can do it, nor does it mean that I haven’t already thought about it. There will be some luck involved, and you will need to borrow knowledge from everyone in this room to pull it off. To be honest with you, it is not a task that I would wish upon anyone, but you are the leader of this monastery now, and even though this is something that could take you decades, you must start thinking of your legacy now. In a way, this goes for you too,” he said, returning his focus to me. “Time is always running out.”

Chapter Four: The Inevitable

It was late, everyone asleep, the monastery quiet.

I sat with my back to my bed, legs crossed, working on the breathing technique that Baatar had suggested during his earlier transmission.

I tried to breathe to the back of my skull, tried to visualize my breath moving through me, hoping to be silent enough that I could actually hear my own heartbeat.

It only worked if I popped my ears, but there were a few times that I felt truly still. Could I actually slow my heart? Could I breathe so slowly that I could feel my blood oxygenate?

Thoughts came to me, I labeled them, and tried to continue.

But no matter how hard I tried, I kept coming back to the time I spent in the underground meditation chamber, darkness all around me, hallucinating like I was on lotus.

It had been a brutal experience, but once I had gotten used to it, once I had accepted it as my fate, the experience allowed for my mind to wander in ways it never had before.

Through meditation, especially after I reached a certain level of oneness, I would be able to do the same thing I’d done in the underground chamber, to visualize an experience that was neither the future nor the past.

But I had to remind myself this wasn’t the purpose; the purpose of my meditation was to better control my body to the point that I could turn my power on and off.

I was just reaching a stopping point in my meditation when I noticed a creaking sound in the ceiling.

I looked up, and as I did, a masked man erupted into my bedroom, delivering a knee to my chin. I scrambled to grab my sword; the man kicked it away just as I got my hand on the hilt.

He shifted his weight to his other foot and dove on top of me, slamming the back of my head against the cold stone.

Time slowed to a standstill.

I blinked twice, realizing the man was just about to move his hands to my neck, my eyes falling onto the dark seal on the front of his uniform.

A snow lion.

The thought that Sona had arrived nearly broke me from my spell.

Yet time continued to remain at its epically slow pace, the man’s hands barely moving an inch toward my neck, an expression of fury appearing on his masked face.

He would never see the knee that I sunk into his groin, time rushing back to its normal pace, the man suddenly barreled over as I pushed him off.

I grabbed my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom and drove it into his back. He shrieked in pain as I pulled the blade out, the wound already cauterized.

I finished the job.

His head bounced on the floor and his body ignited.

A terrible cry from the hallway, the crackle of fire, a noise that sounded like a bookshelf had been knocked over—we were definitely under attack.

I charged out of the room, managing to tighten my robes with one arm as I moved. A few of the candles already extinguished, I skidded to a halt when I came upon a darkened hallway full of ninjas waiting for me.

“Shit,” I said under my breath, my flaming sword at the ready.

The first ninja came and I hacked his foot off at the ankle.

I narrowly brought my blade up in time to meet the next man, who had a katana.

Our weapons clinked together, the fire from my Flaming Thunderbolt spreading down to his blade and up his arm. I turned back to the now foot-less man and punched him so hard that blood sprayed out of the back of his head.

Two came at me at once, both circling around the guy who was now on fire and trying to put himself out. The first went for a roundhouse kick while the other slipped to the side.

With a deep breath in, I willed time to slow down, failing miserably.

A knee came into the small of my back, bringing me to the ground. I rolled just in time to avoid a flurry of kicks. I managed to grab one of the legs and whip the ninja to the ground.

I blindly waved my sword in front of me, connecting with a leg, an arm, the side of someone’s back as they tried to get out of the way, more bodies igniting. I got up to one knee, delivering a fist to the chest of the ninja who was already down, the man’s lungs collapsing.

One of the ninjas was just about to advance on me when a huge fireball took down one of the walls, Tashi’s body sailing through it.

There was even more commotion outside, and as Tashi scrambled back to his feet, the fire spirit looked to me, panic in his blazing eyes.

Another fire spirit swarmed into the room, smashing into Tashi and sending a couple ninjas to their knees.

Using this distraction to my advantage, I tackled one of the ninjas and beat him to a bloody pulp with the hilt of my sword. Another came at me and lost an arm for his effort, the man still fighting until I managed to bring my sword through his gut.

I feared for Altan, Lhandon, and Baatar, and just as the thought left my mind, time slowed to a standstill.

A ninja with a club ran in slow-motion at me now, the tip of his weapon on fire, the man balanced on one foot.

I charged forward and delivered a punch to his stomach that sent a ripple tearing out of his back followed by a corona of blood and viscera, time speeding up just as the ceiling gave way in front of me.

Backpedaling, I was just about to move forward again when…

Whack!

Something cracked me in the back of the head, my brain exploding into a barrage of colors.

I was out cold.

Things started to spin back into existence, reality muddy, barely stitched together.

I winced, tasting blood at the back of my mouth, blinking rapidly as I tried to come to grips with what I saw. “Glad you could join us,” came a woman’s voice.

Sona stepped in front of me, the woman with the long dark hair in her magical armor, her blade rimmed in purple energy at her side.

Baring her teeth, she drove her sword into my chest.

I let out a grunt, the pain boiling through me, something about her and her enchanted sword causing my skin to boil.

She pulled her blade out, the wound sizzling.

“You knew this was coming,” Sona said as things started to blur again. She pulled my head back and spit in my face.

“Nick!” Lhandon shouted.

I looked to my left to see that he was crouched in front of me. One of Sona’s elite guards stood behind him, a sword at his back.

Altan was to his right, in a similar position with his hands behind his head, a sword pointed to his back as well.

Finally, there was Baatar, who lay on his side, the old man’s eyes twitching, a pool of blood forming around his head.

A terrible inferno was reflected in all three of their faces, the monastery behind me on fire, the warmth suddenly reaching my back.

“How…?” Altan asked, a wild look on his face.

The woman standing behind him pressed the tip of her sword into his back. Altan cried out, realizing that she would press it all the way through if he squirmed.

“That’s a good question,” Sona said, taking a step away from me. “I figured you would have a patrol of some sort, some way to know if we were going to approach, so we sent part of our group on the most visible path as a decoy.” She motioned toward the field we had come through the other day. “But none of that matters now. You will pay for what you did to Madame Mabel’s lotus.”

I looked at her curiously for a moment. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” she asked, turning back to me.

I placed my hand over the wound just beneath my sternum, wheezing as I sucked another breath in. I lifted my other hand, recalling the rune for my healing ability. It was well after midnight, and I could only use it once a day, but I hadn’t tested it to the point that I knew when the power reset.

“Know what?” she asked again, and in that moment I noticed a towering fire spirit lift from the ground, his head crowned in golden flames.

It wasn’t Tashi.

I also noticed a person I hadn’t seen before, one wearing monk’s robes.

His hood was pressed back and he had a reptilian face. A cylinder of energy slowly moved around his hand, and as he raised it in Baatar’s direction, the hermit cringed in pain, coughing up more blood.

“So you’re going to kill us all?” I asked, my eyes darting left and right as I tried to come up with a plan.

A pair of the ninjas I’d seen earlier came forward, one of them holding my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom by its hilt, the blade sheathed. He dropped it on the ground, the other one placing Baatar’s large bag next to it.

“No, I’m going to bring you back to Nagchu and let Madame Mabel have the honors,” Sona said, her scarf covering the wicked smile on her face. “I can hear your screams now. It is going to be a long and excruciating experience, Nick.”

I looked to Lhandon, whose eyes were wide, his cheeks puffed out.

I wished one of us was telepathic; it was clear that the portly monk wanted to tell me something.

“You’re going to be in for a surprise,” I said, hoping that Lhandon needed me to prolong our dialogue, that he had a plan, a rune, anything that would help us.

“Speak,” Sona said, placing her sword under my chin.

I could smell my own burning flesh now, my skin sizzling as she slowly lifted my head, forcing me to maintain eye contact with her.

“It is over,” she said softly.

And as the words left her lips, Lhandon exhaled deeply, Gansukh blasting out of his mouth, the ice spirit careening toward Sona.

The guard behind Lhandon shoved her sword deep into his back, pressing it out the front of his chest. The guard behind Altan did the same, both of them slumping forward.

“No!” I screamed, trying to pull myself to my feet and failing.

Gansukh’s arm morphed into a large blade of ice. The ice spirit took a swing at Sona, the woman meeting it with her sword.

Her armor started to ripple down her body, thickening to protect her from the subzero temperatures radiating off Gansukh’s flesh as their blades met again.

More guards charged us, Lhandon throwing his hand at them and a boulder forming.

It took me a second to realize that it wasn’t a boulder; it was a prayer bead, one of the weapons that Baatar had given him which Lhandon had never used before.

As the prayer bead tore through our enemies, a circular wall of flames erupted around us, Tashi crying out as he pulled more fire from the ground than I’d ever seen him conjure before.

The fire spirit had come out of nowhere, surging through a line of Sona’s elite guards. He met the other fire spirit head-on, the two lashing at each other.

Clank! Clank!

Gansukh and Sona’s blades cracked against one another.

Ram horns grew from the ice spirit’s skull as it butted its head forward, Sona shoved outside the wall of fire.

“Run!” Tashi shouted, pulling more flames from the ground, the terrible inferno tinged with blue and purple. “Run!”

Not knowing if it would work or not, I traced up the rune for Healing Hand and felt the energy come to me, letting out a sigh of relief.

I then gasped as I realized the predicament Sona had put me in.

As if he were reading my mind, Baatar shouted for us to go, looking intently at Lhandon as the monk stumbled over toward him. The heavyset monk fell and came back up again, his hand covered in his own blood.

He looked up to me, horror on his face.

I started to drag myself toward him, the fire blazing all around us.

“You have to heal yourself, Nick,” Lhandon said as I reached him.

“But I can only heal three…”

“You must!” Lhandon said, a finality in his voice that I’d rarely heard from the man.

I pressed my hand against the wound on my chest, healing it up instantly.

“Now, Altan…” Lhandon said as he inched closer to Baatar. “Do it, Nick!”

The hermit whispered something into Lhandon’s ear as I healed Altan, the monk nodding, a pained expression on his face like he wanted to both scream and cry at the same time.

“We can bring him with us,” I told Lhandon, nearing the two of them again, feeling instantly rejuvenated due to my healing power.

“No…” Baatar said, blood bubbling down his lips. “I’m ready… to pass. Heal him, now!”

I moved my hand over Lhandon’s wound, instantly feeling regret that I wasn’t able to do something to help the hermit.

Lhandon gasped as his skin stitched back together, his internal organs mending, the bruises on his face instantly disappearing, the light returning to his eyes. He grabbed onto my arm. “Nick, we have to go now.”

“Your sword,” Altan said, handing me my sheathed blade, Baatar’s bag already flung over his shoulder.

“We can fight them,” I started to say.

Lhandon shook his head. “We must go!”

“All right, all right,” I said as a plume of fire lifted on my left.

Altan and I took off, Lhandon lagging behind. The fire rose higher into the air as we continued to the right of the monastery, embers everywhere, walls collapsing into each other.

We came to the long line of steps that led up to the monastery, some of the blue prayer flags on the side already covered in flames.

“Shit,” I said, preparing to take each step at the same time.

Gansukh spiraled over us and collided with the steps of the monastery, creating a flat plane of ice that led all the way to the bottom.

“No way…” I started to say.

Lhandon launched himself down the ice slide with a grunt, Altan following after him, his hands tightly clutching Baatar’s bag.

Not knowing how this was going to turn out at the bottom, I sat down and pressed myself off, my body picking up momentum almost instantly.

I looked up to see Gansukh following above me, a determined look on the ice spirit’s face.

And just as I was about to reach the bottom of the steps, my body began to slow, the ice ramping up to decrease momentum.

“Oh my God,” I said as soon as I got off, watching as Tashi came down from the top, melting the ramp along his way, Sona’s fire spirit on his tail.

“How do we stop that thing?”

“The Flaming Thunderbolt!” Lhandon said, a splash of determination on his face.

I unsheathed my blade and lifted it into the air at the very last moment.

Tashi slammed into it, a plume of fire creating a mushroom cloud above me. The other fire spirit came to meet me just as the length of my sword quadrupled in size.

The enemy fire spirit surged forward.

I hacked him in half, my blade starting at his shoulder and tearing out the other side of his body.

The fire spirit fell to the ground, his form starting to shrivel.

“Finish him,” I heard Tashi say.

I approached the fire spirit and drove the blade into the golden flames licking off his skull.

The fire instantly petered out, smoke taking shape in the air all around him, the smell of brimstone meeting my nostrils.

It was over; the enemy fire spirit was now a black mark in the soil.

I looked to the others as Tashi slowly pulled away from my sword, reforming next to me.

“To the Darkhan Mountains,” Lhandon said. “Before they figure out a way down here.”

Chapter Five: Flight After Fight

We made our way through the woods, the branches whipping at my legs and my arms.

I couldn’t help but think of how things would have been different had I cast the rune that allowed me to absorb three strikes.

Maybe I never would have gotten knocked out, and if I had by some chance been knocked out, if that were even possible, Sona would not have been able to stab me in the chest with the Mummified Hand of Dolma.

Then I could have healed Baatar…

We had gone almost full blackout to prevent them from spotting us, Tashi now a floating teardrop of fire not unlike the flame at the tip of the candle.

Lhandon led the way, even though he was the slowest of all of us, the monk occasionally stopping, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in.

Altan wasn’t far from him, Baatar’s bag flung over his shoulder.

The former slave carefully avoided some of the more ornery branches, light on his feet even though he was somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age.

I was glad the moon was out, adding a deep blue hue to some of the leaves and branches. As we moved deeper into the forest, I kept an eye on the trees, remembering that many of them could attack us as well, which would definitely blow our cover.

“Where are we going?” I asked Lhandon at some point, assuming we were now far enough away from the monastery to talk amongst ourselves.

“The book…” Lhandon said, out of breath. He stopped and placed his hands on his knees, gasping for air. “Sorry… Don’t usually move this fast. Just give me a minute.”

“Which book?” I asked after a long pause, letting the portly monk catch his breath.

“The book Baatar gave me is a priceless treasure…” Lhandon wiped his face with his sleeve. “The Book of the Immortals was in the library, which means it likely burned down with the rest of the monastery.” He bit his lip, a rare glimpse of anger coming across his face.

“Relax,” I started to tell the monk.

“So much knowledge lost to destruction and stupidity! Do they not realize the iniquity of burning a monastery to the ground? And to think we have an entire world like that,” he said, waving his arm out of the woods. “How many books and treatises have been lost in this manner? Can’t they at least preserve the books?”

“It seems to be the way humanity works, in your world and mine.” I looked up at Altan, who had already started moving ahead. Tashi was between us, Gansukh the ice spirit floating off to the right. “But we can have a long talk about it later. You still haven’t answered my question; where are we going?”

Lhandon wiped his face again. Even if it was cold outside, he was still drenched in sweat from moving so quickly. “We need to find the book before we go to the Island Kingdom of Jonang in search of your friend and my predecessor. Baatar’s last words to me were ‘go to the Darkhan Mountains,’ which I took to mean that’s where he hid the book. I’m hoping that Gansukh will be able to help us in this endeavor…”

“Did someone say cave?” the ice spirit asked, looping back around, a few of the branches curling away as it moved past them. “Because that is my specialty.”

“Help us find the book, and you are free to go,” Lhandon said suddenly, a wild look in his eyes.

“You mean it?” the ice spirit asked, and while I couldn’t see the reflection of its face due to the darkness, I could tell by the tone of its voice that it was legitimately surprised. “You would free me?”

“It is absolutely imperative we find that book and…” Lhandon shook his head. “You have my word.”

“Thank you, Exalted One,” Gansukh said.

“Then what?” I asked. “What happens to that version if we get attacked again?”

“I have hand-copied a book before,” Lhandon said. “It is an arduous task, one that requires great concentration, yet one that creates good karma. I’m willing to do my best. We will make a copy as swiftly as we can and hide it somewhere. Perhaps we will make more copies. It is important for people to read this book.”

“I can help you as well,” Altan offered. “Not all the slaves in Nagchu can read and write, but I was able to teach myself at an early age.”

“How?” I asked him.

“When I was a boy, one of the slave masters would allow his children to play with us, mostly because his children got bored while he was working, and his wife was dead, so they came to work with him. The man’s children could all read and write, and I would bet them that I could spell a word or write a sentence, and subsequently learn from them.”

“How would you do that?” Lhandon asked.

“I didn’t know how to read or write, so I would always lose, and then they would show me the right way to spell the word, and the youngest of the three would sound it out. Eventually they caught on, and since they were children, children being a lot less observant of class and bias than adults, the oldest daughter took it upon herself to teach me the rest. So that’s how I learned. Anyway,” he said, shaking his head, “I certainly would do this if it will help you, plus I’m sure I would learn a lot about the Immortals in the process.”

“Yes, good. So first we go to the mountains, we find the book, and from there to Sarpang, home of the Druk people.”

“Those are the reptilian people, right?” I asked.

Lhandon nodded.

“Who was the monk back there, the one with Sona?”

I didn’t see much of the guy aside from his face, and the fact that he was in a set of robes similar to the ones the three of us wore. But whoever he was, there was something sinister about him.

“There are different types of monks here in Lhasa and the surrounding kingdoms, at least from what I know,” Lhandon began. “I would say the Druk man is a monk like us, yet he cultivates negative karma.”

“And that’s how he was able to take down Baatar? He was one who took him down, right? I mean, that guy could fly. If he was able to defeat Baatar…”

Lhandon nodded. “True. I don’t know who that man is, but whoever he is, I pray that we don’t run into him again, not yet anyway, not until we are stronger.”

“How did all this go down anyway?” I asked. “They attacked me while I was in my room. I didn’t see much of the surprise attack, aside from a wall coming down after Tashi and the other fire spirit slammed into it. Did anyone see the Druk monk in action?”

“I didn’t,” Tashi said. “I was too busy engaging the other fire spirit.”

Lhandon turned fully back to the path and started walking again, picking up his pace as he spoke: “I was down in the library when I heard commotion above. The men came and got me, and by the time they dragged me up, Baatar and Altan had already been taken.”

“That was really clever, by the way, how you used Gansukh to save us. I didn’t see that one coming,” I told him.

“It sure was cold in my mouth.”

“And your breath smelled horrible,” Gansukh said with a laugh.

“And your prayer bead…” I recalled Baatar giving them to Lhandon in the cave, back before I had the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom. He had yet to use any of them, but seeing one in action told me it was definitely something we needed to add as part of our team combat going forward.

“Yes, I…” Lhandon bowed his head. “I was uncertain how that would turn out. I’m glad it went over smoothly.”

“How many beads do you have left?”

“There are traditionally fifty, and I used one of the beads at the end of the necklace, which is designed to lose that bead if necessary,” he said as he reached into his robes and brought out the beads, showing me what he meant. “I will prep it to be used again. This weapon is in limited supply, but I don’t ever want to waste the opportunity to use it again.”

“Good call. And what about you?” I asked Altan. “Did you see what happened to Baatar?”

“I only saw a little. I was in my room as well, with my window open. I heard the commotion in the courtyard. The hermit was outside meditating when they came, and I believe he cut them off, at least for a moment. The two lifted into the air fighting, the Druk monk was much faster, powered by a dark energy that made it look like his skin was burning blue. As I said, I only got a glimpse of this, because then they came for me pretty quickly after that.”

“I just wish that I had activated my power to absorb blows. Maybe then I could have prevented Baatar’s death,” I said, a sinking feeling in my chest.

“You did what you could do,” said Lhandon. “We have his bag; we’ll go through it later and see what he left behind, plus we know the general location of the book, so there’s that. There’s still hope, Nick. Let’s just make it as far away from the monastery as we can before we rest for the night.”

Chapter Six: Birds of a Feather

We walked for several more hours, far enough away from the crumbled monastery that we were certain Sona hadn’t followed us. We eventually found a spot near a rocky hill jutting out of the woods, a bubbling brook adding a soft ambiance to the place.

It was cold, but we still didn’t want to have a full-on fire. The night was dark enough that a trail of smoke lifting from the woods wouldn’t catch anyone’s attention, but we still wanted to keep it low-key. Altan and I positioned the wood around a pile of porous rocks. Tashi took over from there, quickly bringing the flames down so there wasn’t any fire licking off the wood, just warm embers now.

In the end, we were able to warm the rocks and then keep them that way, Tashi occasionally reigniting the fire and putting it out, our creation sort of reminding me of a radiator.

I couldn’t help but remember the time I lived in Western Massachusetts, in an old home along the Mohawk Trail between Williamstown and North Adams. The radiator had been shit in that old place, and during the most brutal parts of winter, my roommate and I would hover around it in robes, our bodies wrapped in blankets.

I smiled as I watched the embers glow red.

I really was a long way from home.

Altan sat down next to me, bringing his hands to his knees.

“You aren’t going to rest?” I asked him, nodding over to Lhandon, who was already on his side, snoring lightly.

“In a minute.”

The former slave smoothed his hand over his shaved head, an unnerved look on his face.

“We made it,” I reminded him, trying to gauge what was running across his mind’s eye.

“It’s not that,” he said quietly. “Sure, I was starting to really like that monastery, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life there making it better and helping the Exalted One.” He frowned. “You just never know how someone’s going to turn out to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sona. I didn’t tell you much about her when we first met back at the plantation, but there was a time she was under my wing, believe it or not. Not like you; she didn’t stay in my home or anything, but I knew her father, and her mother, and once she was old enough, she would help them in the fields. To see her go from an incredibly poor yet cheerful slave girl to a no-nonsense killer with such utter disregard for karma and piety…”

“It is hard to process,” I said once he didn’t finish his sentence. “I’m sort of going through that myself, in a way, with my friend Bobby. I didn’t know what happened to him after we got separated on the beach, but I sure as hell didn’t expect to find him all drugged up with Madame Mabel, doing whatever it was he was doing for her. Sona was never clear about that.”

“I can’t help you there, I wasn’t generally provided that type of information regarding her guests.”

“Seeing him change like that…” I sighed audibly. “I mean, we were sitting at the table there together, and it was like he didn’t even recognize me, like his eyes were made of old glass. How’s that even possible? Can lotus really do that much damage?”

“A high-level extract could,” Altan said. “There are different strands, you know, and while I had never tried the stuff from her private stash—you know I kept away from the death plant—I’m aware that Madame Mabel had her own crop. She generally had a group who worked for her concocting things, apothecaries, alchemists, and the like. My guess is your friend joined that group. Was he pretty smart?”

“I mean, he wasn’t a genius or anything. He was a middle school teacher, and he spoke a little Spanish,” I said, unable to prevent myself from smiling at this statement as I recalled our time on the beach together, Bobby convinced that being bilingual was going to help him here.

“Spanish?”

“Another language.”

“Well, there is no telling what happened to him,” Altan finally said. “But there is something I know.”

“What’s that?”

“When Sona reaches Nagchu, she’s going to go absolutely ballistic.”

I imagined her arriving at the plantation, Mabel’s mansion razed to the ground, her fearless leader dead, the only person of authority left being… Evan.

“We have some real enemies,” I said, Evan now on my mind. “Which is why I don’t think we should write them off in the least bit, even if we end up going to a different kingdom. Not with what we probably have coming.”

“I firmly agree.”

“I’m honestly surprised that she didn’t get word sooner. Are you telling me they don’t have a system to send her a message?” I asked, assuming that they had a runner or possibly a carrier pigeon.

“I’m sure they sent someone out, but that person may have just run off. There’s going to be an incredible amount of instability at the plantation now, if it even continues to exist as a plantation in the way it used to exist. This will trickle into Nagchu as well. If I were that runner, and I was told to go find Sona, and I didn’t have a family or any real collateral, I just wouldn’t come back,” Altan said. “Maybe that happened.”

“Maybe. It was clear that she didn’t yet know what happened back in Nagchu. Things would have been much worse if she had.”

Altan and I eventually moved closer to Lhandon so we could enjoy the warmth that Tashi had created with the rocks and the fire. It wasn’t exactly comfortable sleeping on the ground, but I was used to it by this point, able to nod off relatively quickly.

As I was drifting off, I asked Dema to visit me in my dreams, hoping that I could have a word with my dakini, as they called her in Lhasa. But no dreams came, at least none that I could remember.

I awoke to the sound of birds chirping, my eyes settling on an orange squirrel with bushy eyebrows. He barked at another squirrel, the two scampering up a tree trunk.

I sat up and watched the creatures for a moment, a sudden pang in my stomach.

Altan was already up, seated in meditation. And rather than say anything, I silently joined him, taking a few deep breaths, happy to be alive.

I heard my stomach grumble and I ignored it.

Each breath in calmed me even more, tuning me to my environment, the bubbling brook, the squirrels fighting in the trees, a wind picking up and rustling the branches, carrying a scent to my nostrils that reminded me of honeysuckle.

Eventually, Altan spoke. “I’m going to search for food, if you’re interested.”

“Sure,” I said, blinking my eyes open.

I followed Altan into a patch of tall grass, watching him carefully examine some of the plants, tugging a few of them up, sniffing them and stuffing them into the front of his robe.

I pulled up a few as well, and brought one of the bulbs to my nose, finding that it smelled somewhat like garlic.

“This is exactly what I was hoping for,” Altan said, crouched in front of a flower with glossy leaves. “Just pull the leaves off, and leave the flower, these ones grow back in a day or two.”

I did as he instructed, a few of the leaves as large as my hand. Their texture reminded me of spinach, and as we brought our finds back to the camp, Lhandon sat up, a smile on the monk's face. “All we need now is some meat,” he said, licking his lips.

“Monks in my world don’t eat meat,” I told him, realizing we hadn’t really had the conversation before.

“And this is for karmic reasons?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Interesting,” Lhandon said as he massaged his temples. “Then it is something I will have to give thought to. While I don’t always eat meat, we were taught that animals generally used for meat did so for karmic value.”

I offered him a skeptical grin. “You mean they wanted to be eaten?”

Lhandon shrugged. “Everything in this world serves a purpose, and there isn’t really a taboo against eating the flesh of an animal, as long as it was done so respectfully, and by respectfully I mean the killing part. Don’t terrorize the animal, respect it for what it has provided you, and enjoy the meat from there.”

“I’m all down for eating meat; you don’t need to sell me on that point.”

“This should make our search for nourishment easier.” Lhandon uncorked the bottle he kept in the front of his robes, Gansukh emerging from it. “Would you be so obliged to find us a few rabbits, and kill them humanely?”

“With pleasure,” the ice spirit said, drifting away.

“Should I go with it?” Altan asked.

“I can bring them back to you,” Gansukh said over its shoulder.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but of the two spirits who had joined us on this journey, Gansukh was the more tangible, able to truly lift something by forming a frozen hand or hook. Tashi, not so much. And sure enough, not ten minutes later Gansukh returned, holding four rabbits by their ears, their skulls frozen.

“Mating season is upon us,” the ice spirit said. “There are enough rabbits out there to feed the beggars on their annual pilgrimage around Mount Dolma.”

“I’m going to need a knife,” Altan said as he took the frozen rabbits from Gansukh.

“Is there one in the bag?” I asked, referring to Baatar’s bag.

“Let me check with you,” Lhandon said, excitement coming across his face. “Now that we have light, it is important we go through Baatar’s items with care and respect. The Eternal Monk may have left notes about his reincarnation as well.”

“We’re not going after another reincarnation, are we?” I asked with a playful groan.

“Perhaps, but we have plenty of things to do before we add that to our list.”

“That was absolutely fantastic.” Lhandon looked at Altan and me, suddenly embarrassed by the belch that had just left his lips. “My apologies,” he said, bowing his head.

I laughed. “It’s fine, the rabbit was really good.”

“And the Eternal Hermit’s bag will allow us to save the fur for later if we need it,” Altan said. “We don’t have any warm clothing at the moment, our robes are pretty filthy right now as well, and definitely not suited for the higher mountains.”

“As long as we can make sure that the fur doesn’t affect any of the contents of the bag…” Lhandon started to say.

“Not to worry, I will wrap them in some of the leaves of the Dorj tree.” Altan nodded to a tree about fifty feet away, with a trunk that almost resembled a man with rhinophyma. I hadn’t really noticed before how large its leaves were, but a couple of them together could easily cover the rabbit fur, preventing it from touching anything in Baatar’s bag.

Lhandon was satisfied with what we had found in the bag, which included a small pocket knife with a hilt made of bone; a journal with maps and notes regarding wondrous points and hidden treasure in the Darkhan Mountain range, which was where we were heading anyway; a pouch of mysterious crystals no larger than grains of sand; and a series of letters written to Lhandon, which he had pressed against his forehead immediately upon discovering, whispering a quick prayer.

As Altan began gathering leaves, I turned my attention to Lhandon, who had just returned from the stream, his face freshly washed.

“So?”

“Yes?” he asked me.

“Are you going to leave us in suspense here? Or are you going to read the letters?”

“In due time, Nick,” he said. “I want to be in a different place to read them, not at the start of a day’s journey. Otherwise, my mind will be focused on the contents of the letters all day, instead of focusing on getting where we need to go.”

“So tonight then?”

He nodded, his attention turning to his ponytail, which he quickly started to braid up. “Most definitely.”

“What do you think they are about?”

I saw Altan duck down. Tashi flared up, making his way over to the former slave. Gansukh held back, a crown of spikes pressing out of the ice spirit’s head as it focused on something in the distance.

I went for my Flaming Thunderbolt.

I held the sheath in my hand as I partially withdrew the blade, the flames licking off the blackened steel. I motioned for Lhandon to get behind me, my focus settling on the forest, watching with bated breath as Altan crawled back over to us.

“What is it?” I asked him, but before he could reply, I looked up to see a turquoise bird with yellow tail feathers do a circle, and nearly fall out of the air once it spotted us.

My mouth dropped open.

“R-Roger?” I glanced back to Lhandon, who was shaking his head, trying to process what he’d just seen.

I stood immediately, not at all concerned if this was a trap or not.

Rather than come toward me, the bird I thought was Roger dipped back behind a tree, Tashi looking at me for guidance.

“Just stay alert,” I said as I moved past the fire spirit and around a bend, where I almost ran headfirst into Roger and Bobby.

“Nick?” Roger asked, trying to contain his joy. “What the fuck are you doing here!?”

“Roger?”

“Nick!”

“Bobby?”

“Urrrggghhhh…”

Bobby was bad off, a confused look on his face as he took me in, his thinning blond hair a mess and his face covered in mud. He stared right through me, his left cheek twitching as he took a single step forward and fell to a knee.

From there he lowered to his side, curling up into a ball, his thumb going into his mouth.

“How did you…?” I wanted to hug the bird, but I didn’t quite understand how the mechanics of that would work. Instead, I sheathed my blade, trying to contain my bewilderment. “I saw the arrow strike you, I saw you hit the ground. I took your feather!” I reached into the pocket of my robe and showed him the yellow feather.

“You were going to find my reincarnation?”

“Of course! I mean…” I shook my head as Altan and Lhandon approached me.

Altan looked to the bird and from there to Bobby. He said something to Lhandon and moved over to the fallen man, helping Bobby to our campsite.

“Praise all the gods!” Lhandon said, bowing his head at Roger. “Is it so? How can it be? We were certain you were dead! This is uncanny, this is unheard of!”

“Seriously?” Roger cackled. “You guys don’t know the old get-shot-by-an-arrow-and-grab-it-with-your-feet-and-tuck-it-under-your-wing trick birds do all the time here in Lhasa?”

“Wait, what?” I asked, still not able to contain my excitement.

“What’s he saying, Nick?”

“He says that he faked his own death.”

“That trick is like one of the first things I learned in bird school,” Roger said, still flapping in the air, his beak lifting into a wide grin. “Someone shoots an arrow at you, you pretend that this person got you, and you fall into a tree somewhere. Then this guy—let’s call him an asshole because he clearly is for hunting birds in the first place—anyway, this asshole starts looking for you, and while this asshole is looking for you, you fly away using the foliage as cover. It is seriously the oldest trick in the book.”

“Then why didn’t you wake up when I took your feather?” I asked him.

“Heh, about that. I knocked myself out. Apparently, I don’t have as much grace as I thought I had.”

“How did he do it, Nick?”

I pantomimed what it would look like to catch an arrow with one’s arm and fake fall.

“What a clever birdy!”

“First, it’s bird, and second, a bird usually has a tree to cushion its fall, but I didn’t have a tree, so I hit the ground instead. My fall hurt, believe me, and it knocked me out. To be honest, I’m glad I don’t have a concussion, and I’m equally thankful I didn’t get stepped on.”

“It is a karmic blessing!” Lhandon exclaimed.

“I woke up and you guys were long gone. There was fire everywhere, one of Sona’s half-naked ninja lady guards was moving past me, you get the picture, so I just took off. I was going to fly away too, but then I saw this guy,” he said, using his wing almost as if it were a thumb to point in Bobby’s direction.

“And this was at night?” I asked.

“Something like that. More like twilight, to be honest. There was madness everywhere, especially once all the slaves found out that Mabel had been offed by you, Nick. I would have just flown away, and I was planning to meet you guys at the monastery, to surprise you there, but like I said, I saw your friend lost in one of the fields, clearly searching for a way out. He never spoke to me. As you can tell, he’s not coherent. I had to pretend I was a hallucination just to keep him following me.”

“You pretended you were a hallucination?” I asked him, ignoring the wide-eyed look on Lhandon’s face as he tried to piece together what we were talking about based on my questions.

“I sure did. I kept scaring him, and landing on his shoulder, biting at his ear, that sort of thing. So not a great hallucination. There were a couple times that I had to beat him a little bit with my wings. Not too hard though. For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to feed him, you know, bird-style, but he didn’t seem hungry. He did shit himself a few times, but that was to be expected.”

“And why were you coming this way?” I asked, confirming my next sentence with Lhandon. “This is the path that leads to Darkhan Mountains.”

“I knew Sona was after you guys, and she would likely come with a big enough force to take the main route. I was trying to lead your friend here in a different way, but as you can tell, he is a bird and I am a human, wait no, I am a bird and he is a human,” Roger said, winking at me. “To be clear, and this is probably something I should have asked earlier: this is indeed your friend, Bobby, is it not?”

“Yes, Bobby,” I said hurriedly, still trying to contain my excitement in seeing Roger seemingly back from the dead.

“That’s what I figured. You said Hugo was a soldier or something; he definitely wasn’t the guy who tried to shoot me with an arrow, because I remember that smoldering lump of boiled donkey cock. And mark my words, judgment day is upon the man who tried to shoot me down. I’m capable of killing someone, you know that, Nick.”

I nodded, an image of Evan flashing in my mind. “That you are.”

“Anyway, I knew it wasn’t him, and I didn’t think it was your soldier friend, and there was the other guy…”

“Tom, but for all we know, he drowned in the Sea of Lhasa.”

“So it couldn’t be Tom either. So I was right in calling him Bobby. I guess I should confess now: I was calling him a lot of other things too, including a couple derogatory bird phrases I prefer not to say in front of the monk even if he can’t understand me. But anyway, I figured if I just kept him walking in the direction of the monastery, I would eventually get him there. So that’s how we ended up in this pass.”

“And you have stumbled upon us…”

“I wouldn’t say I stumbled,” Roger told me. “I heard some talking, and I flew up and saw you all down here. But anyway, that’s my story. And thank you for hoping to go after my reincarnation,” Roger said, bowing his head at me. “That is very kind of you, Nick; and I would have done the same for you.”

“I know you would have.”

“But you have to admit, there was no telling what I would reincarnate as. For all you knew, you might have had to take care of a baby bear or a venomous mountain possum for the next ten years until I was cognizant enough to speak.”

“What’s he saying?” Lhandon asked. After I summarized our conversation including the last bit Roger had said, the monk nodded. “We were prepared to make that… sacrifice.”

“I’m just glad to find someone else to take care of Bobby, because I’m clearly not equipped to do so.” Roger looked to his wings. “Speaking of bears, we are so lucky we didn’t get attacked by a bear, or snow lion, or an evil spirit for that matter. We did run into a spotted deer that was giving us a lot of shit, but that’s a story for another day. Did you guys finish cooking something?”

I nodded.

“Have anything left?”

“I’m sure we can find something,” I said as Roger followed me over to the fire.

We passed Altan, who was now working with Tashi to quickly blacken some of the plants he’d pulled from the ground. As Roger picked the meat off one of the rabbit bones, I joined Altan to see what he was concocting.

“It’s a salve,” he explained. “Hopefully, it will help.”

Tashi nodded. “I’ve never seen someone having these types of withdrawals from lotus, but this drug wasn’t as popular when I was a human.”

“I’ve only seen this a few times,” Altan said as Tashi continued to burn down some of the leaves and roots Altan had picked, the faint smell of burnt rubber reaching my nostrils. He had set the plants on a rock, the material boiling, and hardening into a fine paste. “It may get worse; we’re going to have to constantly take care of him.”

“I’m sorry…” I started to tell Altan.

“Nonsense. If we can nurse him back to health, he may offer us some insight into what was happening at Mabel’s, that is, if he can remember. Aside from that, he is your friend. Aside from that…”

“Karma.”

Altan nodded. “Probably the same reason the bird was so eager to lead him to us.”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking back to Roger. “He sort of has his own agenda.”

“You would know better than I.” He returned his focus to Bobby. “Hopefully this will do the trick. It will at least keep him asleep for a while as he recovers. We’re going to have to figure out a way to carry him up to the mountains with us. Moving into a higher altitude, with the air thinner than it normally is, means we won’t be able to carry him, or anything like that. Any ideas?”

I looked to Gansukh, who had taken the role of a translator between Lhandon and Roger.

“I have something in mind.”

Chapter Seven: Say My Name

Maybe there would be a time where we would look back at this and laugh.

We were a pretty odd group: a girthy monk, a fire spirit, a former slave, a tropical bird, an outsider from Massachusetts, and an ice spirit who had concocted an ice sled, in which rested another man from Massachusetts, a middle school teacher.

The sled was partially due to Altan’s ingenuity.

After I told him of my idea about how we could cart Bobby around, he quickly went about making rope out of bark from the Dorj tree that was sturdy enough to actually pull a melting sled of ice over hard gravel. Every thirty minutes or so, Gansukh would stop to strengthen the sled, but other than that it had worked, relieving us of the burden of actually having to carry someone.

As we moved into the Darkhan Mountains, Roger now on my shoulder, the temperature started to change and the air grew thinner.

There was less vegetation up here, lots of rock and narrow paths too. At one point we came across an altar decorated with colorful prayer flags, Lhandon stopping before it to prostrate and say a prayer.

Other than that, and the occasional sign of an animal through either its droppings or the bones a predator left behind, our journey was pretty uneventful.

As we continued onward, Roger eventually launched into a story about another bird he knew.

“He really liked them big,” Roger said, “like pigeon-fat. But the thing was, he was a scrawny guy. I mean, this bird was like half my size, so you should have seen him next to some of these big gals. He had this dance he did, too, sort of jumping around on the ground and flashing his tail feathers. Really over the top. I know that these types of dances attract females, every bird knows that, but there are some beautiful birds who simply want a mate who is good at conversation.”

“And that would be you, right?” I asked him.

“Exactly. Look, there are better bird schools than the one I went to, sure, but mine was one of the top, and there’s much more that a bird should do to impress a lady than dancing around shaking its bum. I mean, have some self-respect, right? But anyway, this bird I know, you should have seen this guy, Nick. You wouldn’t believe the number of ladies he courted at once. He spread his seed all over the jungles near the Sea of Lhasa. He got chased out of there so many times, ha! But he did get himself plenty of tail feather, if you get my drift.”

I started laughing. “I think I do.”

“What is he saying to you?” Lhandon asked, turning back to us.

He had stopped to take a breather, allowing Roger and me to catch up. The monk wiped the few beads of sweat from his brow, sucked in a deep breath, and smiled at us.

“He’s telling me a story about birds, nothing that you would be, um, very interested in.”

Roger seemed to think otherwise. “I think the fat monk would like the story. If he were a bird, he would probably be about the same size as the pigeons my friend liked. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too cruel to him because he can’t understand me. But anyway, this guy I know, as I said, he was getting a lot of tail feather, much more than any bird in his right mind could need or possibly want. And then he messed with the wrong chick. Literally. She was underage; although she was still big-boned, she definitely wasn’t legal. Anyway, her dad found out, and when my buddy came around, her dad swooped down from the tree,  pecked one of his eyes out, and proceeded to beat the shit out of him too.”

“So he was blind after that?”

“I really would like to know what you are talking about,” Lhandon said, looking from Roger to me. “It sounds fascinating.”

“‘Somewhat depraved’ is how I would describe it,” I told the monk.

“He sure was, but only in one eye. It really messes up a bird’s trajectory to be blind in one eye. So he sort of flew at a tilt.” Roger lifted off my shoulder to show me what he meant. “Like he had taken a bath in a barrel of chung. And I thought that was the end of his lady-mongering days. I was certain that he was gonna settle down with one of these pigeons, become a family man, you know, that sort of thing.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, the weird way that he flew attracted even more women, believe it or not. And his dance? Now his dance sort of had this swagger to it.” Roger dropped to the ground, trying to show me what he meant. He hopped around, striking one of his feathers against the ground like he was having a seizure.

“What a fascinating dance,” Lhandon exclaimed.

“See? He gets it. And I swear, my buddy got even more tail feather than before his disability. Which goes to show you that confidence is king,” he said, returning to my shoulder. “It really wasn’t about his dance, or his crappy yellow feathers and the way he could shake them in a mesmerizing way. It was about his confidence.”

“I suppose confidence is important,” I said. “Do you know where he is now?”

Roger shrugged. “He got eaten by a jaguar. We told him not to hang out in the jungle, especially during the jaguar mating season. But he wouldn’t listen, so in a way, he sort of flew too close to the sun.”

“My world has a saying about that as well.” I watched Altan pause and examine a colorful patch of moss growing around a pile of small rocks.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Something we should take. Once I run out of the salve I’ve made for your friend, we can try some of this. If I’m not mistaken, it has similar properties,” he said, looking up at me.

“Thank you for taking care of him.”

“It is my pleasure. Coming off a lotus addiction is one of the hardest things a person can do, and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”

I looked to Bobby in the ice sled, curled in a fetal position, his hand twitching.

To think that I had known this man for so long, and he had been reduced to this…

Our walk continued, growing steeper and steeper as the sun started to set. At some point, Lhandon placed his hands on his hips and called up to Gansukh, asking it to slow down.

“What do you think?” he asked the ice spirit. “Do you think we can find a cave around here? And more importantly, do you think you will be able to connect to the overall system? The book is somewhere in these mountains, and I’m counting on you to help us find it swiftly.”

“Absolutely. I can go out on my own tomorrow,” Gansukh said, its breath visible as it spoke, “while you search the easier to reach spaces.”

“Fantastic idea.” Lhandon rubbed his hands together.

It took us another twenty-minute walk or so, but we eventually found a cave opening that was shielded from the wind by a huge stone. After Gansukh and Tashi went inside to clear it out, they invited us in.

There were markings on the wall, as if someone had been keeping count of something. The ceilings were high, yet the space was cozy and dry. And as soon as we got a fire started, the cave warmed nicely.

Gansukh went out in search of meat, and eventually returned with a mountain goat, its head frozen.

“Now that is good eating,” Roger said as he watched Altan butcher the creature.

Roger went for a few choice bits, eating them raw while Altan and Lhandon figured out a way to arrange the rocks so they could cook on top of them.

With Tashi in our group, it was easy to keep the fire going; at Altan’s suggestion, he was able to char the meat to the point where it had a crisp bark on the outside, yet remained soft and juicy on the inside.

We ate, saving some of the meat for breakfast, Roger so full toward the end that he rolled over onto his back, both wings fanned out and laying on his stomach.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bird lay like that,” I said.

He slowly turned his head toward me. “I feel like one of those pigeons I was telling you about…”

“You’d better be careful. Your friend’s ghost is going to find you and…”

Roger cackled, startling Altan. “You have a sick mind, Nick, but a damn good sense of humor.”

I looked to Gansukh, to see it hovering near the entrance. “I will keep guard outside,” the ice spirit announced to the group. “Hopefully, we will find the book tomorrow.”

Lhandon nodded. “And I’ll keep my promise to you,” he told the ice spirit. “We find the book and you’re free to go.”

Gansukh nodded, bits of snow swirling around it as it slipped out of the cave.

After washing his hands in some ice that Tashi had melted for us, the monk waited until his hands were dry and finally went for the letters that Baatar had written him.

I watched quietly as he read through them, Lhandon pinching the bridge of his nose at one point, trying to contain his excitement.

“It makes sense,” Lhandon whispered, once he was finished. “He has given me a foundation for codifying the Path of the Divine in a way that will not only increase a person’s karma, but also allow them to use the power they have cultivated for runic practices, and other acts of piety. I just need time to figure out the other pieces. He knew, Nick! Baatar knew all along it was possible, and that’s not all he knew…”

“Yes?”

Lhandon brought the papers up and pressed them against his forehead, bowing ever so slightly. “He knew the attack was going to happen that night. He wrote the first part of the letter before coming down from the mountain; the second part he wrote in his room back at the monastery after his transmission, giving me the final instructions.”

“He must have written them before he went out to meditate in the courtyard,” Altan said.

“Most assuredly. Baatar was wise beyond his years, a Divine Master. Without this leg up…” Lhandon shook his head. “He knew they were coming,” he said again, the light from the fire flickering across his eyes. “And he has further instructions for us.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Nick, we need you to call Saruul. The Book of the Immortals is in Dornod, the snow lion village.”

“Saaaa-Ruuuullleeee-Ahhhhh…” I said three times, my voice just above a whisper.

I stood outside the entrance of the cave, Lhandon not far from me, the monk with his hands behind his back, his head bowed slightly.

Gansukh was somewhere around, but rather than try to locate it, I wrapped my hands to my mouth again, cupping the sides of my cheeks as I called her name again, louder this time, repeating it three times.

I waited for another minute, and then I did it again, even louder this time.

“Once more,” I told Lhandon over my shoulder, waiting for two minutes before starting again.

I called her a final time and turned back to Lhandon.

“It may take her a while,” he said, shivering.

“Until then, I guess it is best for us to stay here. I can try calling her again in the morning.”

He nodded. “Good plan. The Eternal Hermit left a copy of the Book of the Immortals at the Temple of Eternal Sky run by a monk named Jigme, and only Saruul will be able to lead us to Dornod.”

“Do you know if this Jigme guy is one of the snow lion people?” I asked out of curiosity.

“I really don’t know why he wouldn’t be, especially as Dornod is the snow lion village. Remember the bag of crystals that Baatar left us?”

I nodded.

“Those are for Jigme as well.”

“Technically we were already heading in that direction anyway, right?”

“Sort of, but I’m glad I read the letter when I did. Dornod isn’t accessible by those who don’t know the path.”

I smiled at him. “Imagine if we had searched the mountains for the next five days while you withheld reading the letter…”

“I certainly hope I wouldn’t put you through something like that!”

“Are there nunneries in Lhasa?” I asked once we started making our way back to the cave. “I haven’t heard you mention them.”

“There used to be, but they were all disbanded. Perhaps I will start one in the future. What do you think?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. It never sat right with me that most of the religions in my world gave so much power to men, and not to women. Why can’t a woman be a priest, an imam, a lama? You know, that sort of thing.”

“And those are religious titles specifically given to men?”

“They are. Like I said, it never sat right with me. So sure, once you’re able to get your monastery up and running, I think it would be a good thing to do. If you want me to put this in terms of karma…”

Lhandon chuckled. “It is a very good idea. Let me get my own monastery started first, considering the one that I was supposed to run is now a pile of rubble.”

“I’m sure you will get it sorted out,” I said as we came to Altan and Roger, who were both gathered around the fire. Bobby was off in the corner sleeping, covered by the hide of the goat we’d had for dinner.

“So where is she?” Roger asked.

“She can’t teleport here,” I started to tell him.

“I figured she would come running. Maybe not. To be honest with all of you, even though only two of you can understand me,” the bird said, looking from me to Tashi, “I’m not so keen on going to Dornod. Someone needs to say it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Do cats eat birds in your world?”

I nodded.

“Is Dornod basically on the top of the world, a village that no tropical bird has ever visited before?”

“Yes,” Tashi said.

“Need I elaborate?”

I took a seat next to Roger, who was still on his back, drumming his feathers on his distended belly.

“What’s he saying? He sure is talkative.”

“He’s not very excited about going to Dornod considering he’s a bird, and cats eat birds,” I told Lhandon.

“But these are lions.”

“What the hell kind of answer is that?” Roger asked me.

Lhandon took a seat before the fire. “I suppose the sooner we get to sleep, the faster we will find out if Saruul has heard your call or not. If anyone is interested in meditating, I am planning on doing some before I go to sleep. I was very inspired by the Eternal Hermit’s words, both in his transmission and the letter he wrote to me practically on his deathbed. Once we get to Dornod, I will have more time to develop the idea that he has implanted in my soul. I hope everyone here will be patient while I do this.”

“It seems as if we are planning to stay there for a while,” Altan said.

“I believe it is important, especially before we journey to the Island Kingdom of Jonang. No one should be able to reach us in Dornod; it will give us time to regroup, to get refreshed.”

“I don’t know about you, but hanging out with a bunch of lions for a couple weeks is not my idea of a good time,” Roger grumbled.

“Let’s just see how it goes,” I told the bird. “I’m sure there will be plenty for us to do there. Think of it this way, you can watch me get my ass kicked once I find a trainer.”

Roger considered that. “That could be entertaining…”

Lhandon nodded at me. “Your mindfulness and your control over the Power will improve with training. I think this is an excellent time to train.”

“Be careful not to get distracted by your lioness, training your groins.” Roger started to cackle, but was too full to really put effort into it.

“Dornod would be a wonderful place for your friend to recover,” Altan added. “There won’t be lotus there, I’m sure of it, and being so high in the mountains will keep the air crisp and thin, which will keep him sleepy. It’s best if he sleeps this off.”

“I wish there was a rune that I could use to help him…” I started to say. I glanced over to Bobby, feeling a sinking sensation in my chest.

It pained me to see him in that state.

“Perhaps there is a rune…” Lhandon said. “But I will have to go see what the temple in Dornod has in their library. It is going to be fascinating, really, to actually be able to peruse the books that the snow lion people read. I will try to make it quick, though; I’m aware that we have bigger plans, and while I don’t think that we will be followed all the way up to the village, I would prefer to keep our worldly concerns closer to sea level.”

We meditated together, Lhandon instructing us at first, and then letting each of us take over when we wanted. Roger was the only one who didn’t meditate, the bird falling asleep on his back, occasionally mumbling something, turning to his side, and turning back.

After we finished, I cleaned off one of the large flat rocks and lay down on it, Saruul on my mind.

I didn’t know her so well, but I was fine with that.

A large part of me was really excited to see her, to share with her what I had learned, for her to see how I had grown since our time in the cave together. I was also keen to learn more about the woman herself, to peel back the mystery of her sudden arrival and disappearance from my life.

The flames danced on the cave wall as I drifted off to sleep, the shadows eventually overcoming them.

Chapter Eight: Dornod

No dreams, but in the early morning twilight I could have sworn I saw Dema sitting outside the cave, her eyes filled with light as she braided her long white hair. Slowly rolling over, I pressed my way to my feet and went out to see if it was really her.

Of course it wasn’t.

After a stretch, I continued forward, noticing a light sprinkle of snow on the crooked bushes that surrounded the caves. I placed my hand on the snow, feeling a coldness between my fingers.

Something in my peripheral vision caught my attention; I looked back to see that Gansukh was meditating, the ice spirit concentrating deeply.

Trying to make as little sound as possible, I moved away from the cave, eventually taking a seat on a large stone, still a bit upset that Dema hadn’t actually come.

I needed to confirm some things with my dakini, especially in regards to the spirit that had attacked us after we left Nagchu.

It made sense that someone from the Underworld was trying to stop our progress, but we still didn’t know who. Perhaps more answers would be available to us in the Book of the Immortals, but I knew our best option for answers would be for us to go straight to the source by speaking with someone from the Overworld.

“Come on, Dema,” I said under my breath, watching a dusting of snow fall from an overhanging branch.

But she never came, and eventually, I got the urge to answer nature’s call.

I walked a little deeper into a patch of trees, where I parted the front of my robes, relieving myself.

I turned away, and as I took a step forward my eyes fell upon a snow lion.

The beast paused; its ears flickered as it slowly began to crouch down as if I couldn’t see it.

“Easy…” I said out of the corner of my mouth, and as the words left my lips, the lion charged forward.

It jumped into the air; my natural reaction was to protect myself with my arms, but rather than feel its claws sink into my flesh, the lion morphed, wrapping her arms around me, her legs around my waist.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I told Saruul, who smiled at me with all the joy in the world.

She was just as I remembered her, white hair with tufts of black in it, powerful hips, and a muscular form. She wore a black leotard that reminded me of a one-piece bathing suit, which shouldn’t have kept her warm yet seemed to do the trick. Her cheeks were red; she was adorable in this form.

“I was going to jump on you when you were pissing, but I figured I would let you finish first.”

“Thanks,” I told her, Saruul still with her legs wrapped around me. One of her ears was erect, the other bent forward, her tail hooked in the air.

“There’s something different about you,” she said, a glimmer of concern in her eyes.

“Some things have changed, yes, but I believe I’m better because of it.”

I set her down, her hand naturally falling into mine as I gave her the briefing on what had happened since we last met, from getting the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, to ruining Madame Mabel’s lotus.

I didn’t touch on everything, but I at least give her the highlights, the lioness nodding excitedly as I spoke.

“So you have been through a lot,” she said once I finished.

“Yes, and this is just the start of the journey, to be honest with you.”

She glanced around at a few of the frozen limbs above us. A cloud was partially covering the sun, yet enough light came through some of the icicles to give a glittery sheen to everything. “Is that why you are in these mountains?”

“Originally we came here looking for a book, but then I was told to contact you.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, cocking her head to the left just a little.

“I guess it’s going to take a little bit more explaining than that,” I said as I told her about the book we were looking for, how that related to the attack on the monastery, and how the hermit whose cave we first hooked up in gave us instructions in the letter for me to contact her.

Saruul turned away from me before I could finish my explanation.

“What is it?” I asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Dornod is my home, and it is a beautiful village, but it is also a village that has not been visited by people from Lhasa for hundreds and hundreds of years. They are a bit…”

“Isolationistic?”

“Protective of the village they have so well hidden. If we are being honest, I have thought about what it would be like if you came, and while I may have made it seem before like you are welcome, I don’t know how you would be received.”

“Have you ever heard of a man named Jigme?”

She nodded slowly. “He is the head monk at the Temple of Eternal Sky, a very kind, educated man.”

“That’s who we were told to meet. The hermit who left us his notes said that Jigme had a copy of the book that we need to jot down. Our copy got burned in the monastery fire. Everything got burned…”

“You should have called me if you needed help,” she said, concern flitting across her face.

“You usually don’t go that far down the mountain, at least according to what you told me. And I’m glad you weren’t there. You could have gotten hurt. I just don’t know. We barely got out alive, and that was with a fire and an ice spirit.”

“So spirits have joined you, eh?”

“Two spirits and a former slave,” I told her. “Altan was one of the guys that helped me back when I was a slave in Nagchu. We actually had the ice spirit when we met you, but we hadn’t let it out of the bottle yet. The fire spirit came to us when I went to ring the Hermit Bell.”

Her ears twitched ever so slightly. “I recall hearing that bell.”

“I suppose I have a pretty strange crew: a bird, two spirits, a monk, and a former slave training to be a monk. I suppose I should just call him a monk, now, but I don’t know if he has been ordained, however that is done here. One of my friends is with us as well, a guy from my world…”

“A world that isn’t reachable from here, correct?”

I nodded.

“I remember what you told me in the cave,” she said softly.

“At the moment, Bobby is not well, but we are hoping he will be able to rest in Dornod.”

Saruul crouched down and brought her hand to her chin as she thought this through. “I don’t think it is a good idea for you to go to Dornod, not now,” she said, looking up at me. “The Winter Moon festival is upon us, and while it is a wonderful time, it is also a time of inebriation. Many of the men and women will be intoxicated, which could prove dangerous for you and your friends.”

I shrugged. “It sounds like a risk we will have to take.”

She gave me a harsh look, the woman’s canines suddenly visible. “I don’t believe that is a decision that you are able to make. You called me here so I could take you there, did you not?”

I nodded.

Saruul’s eyes darted left watching something move through the frozen underbrush. Her nostrils flared open. “A rabbit,” she said turning her attention back to me.

“Let’s just talk this over with Lhandon,” I said. “I think he’ll be able to explain better than I can. He hasn’t really told me everything that was in this letter, just some of the basic details.”

“I see.”

Once she was back on her feet, Saruul walked with me to the cave. Before we reached the opening I took her hand again.

“I’ve missed you.”

“And I you, Nick.”

“I’m sorry to put you on the spot like this.”

“Let’s just see what the monk has to say.” A thin smile ran across her face. “Sometimes they can be quite convincing.”

Lhandon was more convincing than I thought he would be, especially after he showed Saruul the letter, the lioness nodding as she finished reading it. And even though she seemed reluctant to do so, she eventually agreed to lead us to her village.

We ate the rest of the meat from the previous night, and once we were done, Altan saw to Bobby, applying the salve under his nostrils and against the inside of his lips. After Tashi melted down a little ice, Altan used a rock to guide some of the water into Bobby’s mouth.

It was around this point that Lhandon walked over to Gansukh, a firm look on his face.

“I told you that I would relieve you of your duties once we found the book…” he began.

“Yes?” the ice spirit asked, its face becoming more tangible.

“And I am a man of my word. Once we reach Dornod, and we are able to confirm that the book is indeed there, your freedom shall be returned to you.”

“I see,” Gansukh finally said. “Thank you.”

“It has been my pleasure,” Lhandon said with a quick bow.

We left the cave once Bobby’s sled was ready, Saruul and I at the front of the group.

“It’s strange to travel with such a large pack,” the snow lioness said, her tail lightly bouncing as she walked.

“Our numbers only seem to grow.”

“Let’s hope it remains manageable.”

“Maybe we’ll add a snow lion to the group.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was serious earlier when I said my village could be dangerous at this time of year. Well, any time of year can be dangerous in Dornod, but this is a time of year in which chung flows freely through the streets, and as you probably can imagine, drunken lions can be quite aggressive.”

“We will keep our heads down then,” I told her.

“I’m sure you will. That is, until they come looking for you. But I guess that’s why you have your fire sword.”

“I suppose so.” I placed my hand on the hilt of my blade, remembering that there was something I wanted to ask her. “You don’t think there would be someone who I could train with in Dornod, do you? I would like to get better with my weapon, especially if we are going to spend some time in the village while Lhandon works out some things at the monastery.”

“You want to train?”  Saruul looked to me, the smile on her face revealing her sharp canines.

I nodded. “I have this power that allows me to slow down time, but I don’t yet have control over it. Before Baatar was killed, he instructed me to get better control over my mind and body. I would like to be able to activate it on command, and I would like to be more useful in a battle.”

“Nick has a pretty awesome power,” Roger said as he landed on my shoulder. “Believe me. I’ve seen it in action. Also, no one will try to eat me there, right?” he asked Saruul. “I probably should have asked that earlier.”

She laughed. “We prefer different birds, not thin, tropical ones from sea level.”

“Are there even birds there?”

“Beautiful white birds with blood-red beaks,” she told Roger, “ones that you will instantly fall in love with. I’m sure you will be quite popular in Dornod, considering the color of your feathers.”

Roger looked at his tail feathers and back to her. “The birds in Dornod are impressed by yellow? Every tropical bird in lower Lhasa has yellow tail feathers.”

“It sounds like you’re going to be the talk of the town,” I told him.

“In that case…” Roger ran his left wing over his head as if he were slicking back his hair. “I need to get cleaned up. Also, I might need some type of fur jacket or something. Is there a tailor there?”

“A bird with clothing?” Saruul smirked.

“I’m not made for this kind of weather. I’m more of a jungle-by-the-beach type of guy, who sometimes ventures into the mountains looking to get away from it all. In fact, that’s how we met each other,” he told me. “Had you walked along that path just a couple hours later, I would have been long gone, back to the jungle. But I need to cool off.”

“There’s a tailor in the market, but I’m quite certain they haven’t worked with the birds before.”

“What’s so hard to work with?” Roger asked her. “Just make something that wraps around my body that my wings can stick out of. I’m not ashamed of it. I need to stay warm. Do you know what I have been through since I met your buddy over here?” he asked, nodding toward me.

“No, I do not.”

Roger launched into an explanation of some of the things that had happened, definitely adding a hyperbolic touch to some of the occurrences, ending with how he faked his own death but “gracefully” knocked himself out in the process, all of which seemed to amuse Saruul.

We came to a pass demarcated by a petrified tree with a portion of its trunk scraped flat to allow for some writing.

Lhandon read the script and looked up at me.

“Anything?”

“Just a blessing. A hermit wrote it for anyone who comes to this point. There is a belief that walking past it will generate a small amount of wind that moves across the blessing, carrying it with the person, and spreading good karma. I suppose we should all walk past it.”

“The direction is this way,” Saruul said, nodding toward the trail on the left.

“Perfectly fine. Everyone walk past the marking and move to the other pass. It is foolish to ignore a free blessing. Make sure Bobby goes past the marking as well,” he told Gansukh, “of all people, he is most in need of a blessing.”

Once we did as Lhandon instructed, Gansukh dragging Bobby in the ice sled past the carved blessing, our group made its way along the new trail, which became rockier with every step.

The clouds looked closer than they had ever looked before, and it was only when I took a deep breath in that I realized how thin the air was up here, that it was imperative that I focus on my breathing from here on out, at least until I got used to the altitude.

“The two monks will stay in the monastery, and the spirits can stay with them,” Saruul explained as we walked. “Since one of the monks is taking care of your friend, I’m sure they can host him at the monastery as well. You and Roger will stay with me, at my mother’s home. And that gets me back to the point that we were discussing earlier, the training that you requested.”

“So, you know someone?” I asked her.

“I’m intimately familiar with someone, yes,” she said, something curious about the way she was looking at me. “But it won’t be easy, and the trainer I know means business.”

“As long as it doesn’t kill me…”

“That is not something I can guarantee.”

“And if it helps, I can stay at the monastery as well,” I started to tell her. “I don’t want to bother you and your family.”

“No family; it’s just my mother and me,” she said with a shrug. “My father died long ago doing what so many lions end up doing.”

“What’s that?” Roger asked. “I’m genuinely curious over here. The only experience I have with lions is actively trying to avoid them.”

“He died in a fight with another male lion. It was at the same festival I’ve already mentioned to you; I was a young girl when it happened and I don’t remember much about him. Lions get pretty drunk during the Winter Moon festival, and their drinking leads to fighting. There are a lot of grudges in the village, which are suppressed most of the year until the festival comes around. We lions even have a word for when you fight someone nearly to the death and they later become your friend.”

“Frenemy?” I asked.

Roger laughed. “That is the dumbest word I have ever heard.”

“Are you talking about words used in your world?” Lhandon asked, who had been listening to our conversation, at least the part he could understand.

“I just thought it would fit.”

“I would like to learn more of these words from your world,” Saruul said as we started up a path accented by discolored prayer flags.

“Then what is the word?” Roger asked her once Saruul didn’t reveal it.

“Friend-who-was-once-an-enemy,” she said in a way that indicated that he should already know the word.

“That’s it?” Roger cackled. “You should use Nick’s word for it. It’s a way better fit.”

“I don’t know how my people are going to react to you, Roger,” she said, her attention still on the trail ahead, “but if I were you, I would do my best not to chastise or correct them. As I told you, we don’t normally eat tropical birds, but as with everything, I’m sure there are exceptions that could be made.”

The thing that struck me at first was that we were completely above the clouds now, mountain peaks still visible on the horizon, the air thin.

I had seen pictures of landscapes like this, but I had never been high enough up for the mountain to break through the clouds. It was beautiful, and at points it almost looked like we were walking along the shore of a white lake, cumulus wisps moving along the tops of the water.

Mountain peaks in the distance reflected onto the tops of the clouds, creating an entirely surreal experience, the sun brighter up here, my brain immediately associating the visual with that of an alien world.

Our group was still going strong, aside from Lhandon who was huffing and puffing at the back. We had walked for hours, only resting to eat some of the meat we’d stored, and for Altan to attend to Bobby.

Transporting Bobby continued to be an issue, and Altan took over once we saw activity in the distance, Gansukh returning to its bottle. We walked up another hill and were suddenly at ground level with a village fortified by a wall tipped in icy spikes.

Four large lion men stood at the city gate. Two held spears and the other two had enormous mallets. They were poised for action, all of their shoulders hunching when they saw us.

One of them took a menacing step forward and growled.

“Easy, Champa,” Saruul said as she approached the man. “All of them are with me.”

“There haven’t been outsiders to this village in years,” he said under his breath, his ears flickering as he bared his canines. His face started to morph and stopped, Champa pleased he had elicited a gasp from Lhandon.

“There hasn’t been a Winter Moon festival since last year. What’s your point? Time rolls on and things change. They are here as my guests, and in particular, the monks were sent here by the Eternal Hermit, who has since died.”

Champa’s angry glare softened. “What killed him?”

“People from sea level, from Nagchu.”

The muscular lion man lowered his mallet from his shoulder, his other fist tensing up. “Such barbarians,” he finally said, the look on his face telling me that he clearly had more to add to that, yet he was trying to maintain control of his words.

“Yes,” Saruul agreed, “so this group will be here for a little while as they follow his instructions to meet Jigme at the Temple of Eternal Sky. Please allow them to coexist here peacefully.”

“That’s not up to me…” Champa said, trying to contain a smile that had started to lift on his face.

“You have been warned.” Saruul stepped past him, nodding for us to follow.

Tashi and Gansukh were both in their bottles now, so it wasn’t like we floated into the village with an ice and a fire spirit as part of our entourage, but that didn’t stop everyone we encountered from staring at us, the young children pointing and whispering things to their mothers.

Some of the lion people were in human form, others were moving around as lions, the men especially large with their thick white and black manes, many of them expertly groomed.

The homes in Dornod were made of stone, shaped like igloos, and they were very low to the ground. The biggest building in the village was clearly the temple with silver pagodas topping the enormous structure.

I had a ton of questions, some of the answers coming to me instantly when I noticed steam coming from the ground. Looking to my left, I saw a well with a cloud billowing off the top of it, a young lion in front of the well lowering a pail and staring us down at the same time.

As we continued toward the monastery, I witnessed a male and female lion working on a new home, steam rising up from the hole they had dug. The underground stream likely warmed their homes as well, which would explain why they were all so low to the ground.

“My home is over there,” Saruul said, nodding to the northwestern side of the village. “But we can drop them off first. I’m sure Jigme will be happy to see you all.”

We approached the Temple of Eternal Sky, prayer wheels spinning on both sides of our group as a breeze whipped up, a great dome overhead with a golden sun and moon at its tip coming into view.

We left Bobby’s ice sled at the bottom of the steps, Lhandon leading the way as Saruul stayed behind with me.

“Where are these birds you’re talking about?” Roger asked her.

“I see you are interested,” Saruul said, looking up at Roger, who was flying in a circle above us.

“No, I’m cold,” he said, “and was hoping to figure out a way to keep warm.”

“Just get in my robes,” I told him.

Roger dropped down onto my shoulder. He moved some of the cloth aside and got situated, even as I helped Altan carry Bobby up the steps.

“I didn’t mean right now…”

Roger cackled. “A little word of advice, Nick: never offer a bird a warm space. That’s just inviting trouble. But I won’t be long; using you for warmth will work until we get that fur jacket I was promised.”

Lhandon entered after taking off his sandals, his head slightly tucked, his chin to his chest. We followed, Altan and I locating a spot to deposit Bobby at the back.

The main prayer hall was made of polished stone, the space defined by several pillars that rose to the dome up top.

Rather than any type of stained glass art, as there had been back at Lhandon’s monastery, there was a giant painting of a seated snow lion on the far wall, and several matching paintings featuring lion monks sitting on flowers. There was also a lion whose skin was completely green, the man famished. The main artwork was framed by golden fabric, and splayed out before the painting were offerings of food, plants, and money.

The room instantly had weight, a gravitas I could feel.

My eyes fell upon a seated monk who wore all white robes, his back to us, his ears erect as he bowed at the painted image. He lifted one finger in the air, letting us know that he was finishing up, and once he bowed again, he stood and turned to us, a calm smile on his face.

He was a medium-sized man with long white hair, which was pulled into a ponytail.

Lhandon dropped his hands to his side and bowed respectfully. “Thank you for having us, Jigme, lion monk. I have a gift for you.”

Lhandon reached into the front of his robes and handed Jigme the small bag of sand-sized crystals. Jigme brought the bag to his forehead, thanking Lhandon.

Several other monks dressed in white came out of the room in the back, each of them carrying folded white robes. They were younger than the man who now stood before us, their tails hooked in the air.

Lining up behind one another, they placed the robes on large cushions on the ground, bowed at the monk standing before us, bowed at Lhandon, and then came to Bobby’s aid, carrying him out of the room.

“You must be ready to get out of your tattered robes and into something warmer,” Jigme said, a curious look on his face as he took us in.

“You knew we were coming?” Lhandon asked.

“Snow lions have their ways, but to answer your question, yes,” he said, slowly gesturing toward the robes. “Although, I don’t know the full purpose of your visit, just that it is important. Please, change your clothing, and join me in the other room once you do. There’s much to discuss, and we can do so over tea and biscuits.”

“Yes, much to discuss,” Lhandon said as he turned to the robes laid out before him. He hesitated for a moment, clearly concerned that there wasn’t a robe large enough for him.

“These robes are designed to allow for some elasticity, especially when we morph,” Jigme told him. “The fabric is flexible, and it will feel snug, but not too tight. I assure you.”

“Thank you,” Lhandon said.

“Join us when you’re dressed.” Jigme nodded for Saruul to follow him.

“Do you mind if our fire spirit listens to what we plan to discuss?” I asked Jigme, who sat cross-legged at the front of a low table. Saruul was next to him, the space across from her occupied by Lhandon.

All of us wore white robes now, which were warm, just as Jigme had said they would be.

They also made me feel dirty.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bathed, and seeing the white robes against my skin told me that it was definitely something that needed to happen, especially if I was to meet Saruul’s mother.

“You have a fire spirit?” he asked.

“And an ice spirit,” Lhandon said, placing his bottle on the table. I did the same, waiting for Jigme to give us an answer.

The lion monk nodded. “If they are part of your party, then they should be privy to our conversation.”

“Thank you,” I said, tapping once on the bottle.

Tashi emerged, staying about the size of an action figure. I looked over to Lhandon’s bottle to see that Gansukh had done the same.

“Before we go any further, I believe you should read this letter.” Lhandon reached in his robes for the note that Baatar had left him. “He wrote the final part just before the, um, Monastery of the Exalted One was burned to the ground.”

“I see,” Jigme said, a disappointed look on his face. “And I’m sorry that you had to experience that. We lion people are lucky. We are too far away from the rest of Lhasa to be bothered by those at sea level. There are other groups in the same position as ours, like the bird people, who are even higher up than us. On one hand, this is a good thing, because it allows for preservation, like this temple here, the Temple of Eternal Sky. This temple has been here for nearly fifteen hundred years, if you can imagine that. On the other hand, it keeps us isolated, and simple-minded at times.”

I took a look at the ceiling, noticing there was something very rudimentary about its construction, a craftsman-like quality that gave me an even greater appreciation for the structure. It really was old.

“It is an amazing monastery,” Altan said, “and I’m glad to have cultivated enough karma to visit in this lifetime.”

“Yes, it truly is something,” Lhandon said.

Jigme read the letter and once he was finished, he brought it up to his forehead. “Surely you realize I can’t give you a copy of the Book of the Immortals?” he asked after he finished.

“Of course not, and I would never ask for such a thing. But I would like to copy it,” Lhandon told him. “And while I do so, I’m going to look through the notes the Eternal Hermit left me as well as his journals, to work toward a codified Path of the Divine. With your blessings, of course. I would also like to peruse your library here if there is time.”

“Certainly,” Jigme said as he handed the letter back to Lhandon. “I will have one of my monks prepare a copying station for you.”

One of the younger lion monks who had been standing near the door stepped forward, bowed at Jigme, and immediately left the room.

“I am assuming that Baatar had told you at least an overview of what the book contains, correct?”

Lhandon nodded.

“Thupten the Corrupted established Lhasa; Misake the Whisperer established the Kingdom of Rinpunga; Padme Lung the Virtuous established the Kingdom of Paro; Ganbold the Strong established the Island Kingdom of Jonang; and Kenzo the Written established the Island Kingdom of Tsirang,” Jigme said, refreshing my memory. “Various sects consider each of them Golden Ones, which has become an issue with interpreting what they did without referring to the book for their true history. It has gotten even sloppier than that, where no one even remembers who they are, just that there was once a Golden One!”

“And that brings us to him,” Lhandon said, gesturing over toward me. “As well as the man that your monks have taken to the infirmary.”

“They are from a different world?” Jigme asked in an almost nonchalant way as he looked over to me. If he was surprised by this discovery at all, he wasn’t showing it.

“Yes,” I said, launching into an overview of my story.

I started from the beginning, making my way to how I arrived in Lhasa, eventually acquired the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, and burned down Madame Mabel’s lotus fields. As I finished up my explanation, leaving out a few details like my time in the meditation chamber, another monk brought tea for us, followed by a different monk who carried two long trays of biscuits, his tail bouncing behind him as he left.

“Please, eat,” Jigme said after I finished my explanation. “Sometimes it’s good just to eat and think, and what you’ve just told me has made me quite hungry.”

Lhandon laughed. “It is a little hard to believe, but it’s true.”

“No, I believe it; he looks like an outsider.”

“He saved me,” Saruul interjected, looking from Jigme to me. “And then he healed me after that. I owe him my life. Had he not come along…”

“Then it was fate,” Jigme said.

I fed a biscuit to Roger, the bird happily taking it to the floor to finish it off. “While Lhandon does what he needs to do here at the monastery, my goal is to get some training. I would like to better understand the ability that I have apparently received from coming through the portal, and while I don’t think I’m ready yet, at some point I would like to have control over it.”

“And your ability allows you to slow down time, correct?” Jigme asked, pulling this bit of information from the explanation I’d given him earlier.

“Yes, but as I said previously, I can’t control it. It just happens.”

Jigme nodded. “Good to know. Then you will be staying with Saruul?”

“Yes,” Saruul said, “and my mother will train him in the meantime.”

I heard Roger nearly choke on his biscuit.

“Your mother?” I asked, looking to Saruul.

“I told you I would see to your training, and while there are other people that could train you in the village, I believe she would be the best.”

“I agree,” Jigme said, echoing Saruul. “Dohna has trained a good many of the village’s strongest men. Are you opposed to her training?”

“No, nothing like that,” I said, “she just didn’t tell me it was going to be her mother.”

“All the men in our village are trained to fight by women,” Saruul explained. “The mothers start when they are young, and while you are no longer young, I’m sure she will be able to teach you something.”

“Hopefully,” I heard Roger say from the ground.

“But not with my sword, right?” I asked.

“If you truly want to control your power, it would be best to learn to control your fists first,” Jigme suggested. “You mentioned that you have the Fist of Force power, given to you by your ring, but do you truly know how to use it?”

I bit my lip. “Not exactly…”

“Then you will benefit from training, as we all would. There isn’t a person alive in this world that couldn’t get better at doing something they’re already an expert at, from an enlightened monk to a seasoned mosquito. And I agree with Saruul, Dohna will teach you things you have never learned before. She will give you a finer appreciation for your abilities, allowing you to truly cultivate the Power. Perhaps you can mix your training in with meditation practice here at the monastery, which will keep you busy, especially as the festival kicks off. It can get a little rambunctious around here during this festival. What better time to focus on your body and mind?”

Jigme slowly ate one of his biscuits and took a sip of his tea.

“And do not worry about your friend,” he assured me, “we will do our best to take care of him here, as well as the two monks, and the spirits, if this is where they plan to stay.”

“I would stay with you, Nick,” Tashi said. “If that is possible.”

I nodded at the fire spirit.

“You know where I’m going,” Roger said as he flapped up to the table. “But remember, I want a jacket.”

“Thank you again,” Lhandon said, bowing his head at Jigme. “I believe our time here in Dornod will be quite fruitful.”

Jigme returned his bow. “Yes, I’m grateful and humbled that the Eternal Hermit sent you in our direction.”

Chapter Nine: Snow Lion Hospitality

I followed Saruul out of the temple. Tashi was in his bottle now, and Roger was tucked under my robes to keep warm.

The beautiful lioness walked a few steps ahead of me, and while we hadn’t discussed it yet, I could tell that we probably weren’t going to be parading around Dornod holding hands and acting affectionately.

The lion people seemed even more suspicious of me now that I was wearing white robes. Anyone we came across as we moved away from the temple stared me down, a few trying to stop their mouths from falling open. Some of the men’s ears perked up, their eyebrows narrowing at me.

“Friendly folks,” I said, waving at a woman with a child on her back. The child hissed at me. A snow lion ran past, ignoring us completely. It still had me on edge, and it took every ounce of concentration I had not to jump out of the way of the beast.

Saruul smirked. “They will get used to you… Hopefully.”

“Have you thought about buying a pair of ears?” Roger asked. “I’m sure whoever’s making me my jacket can also craft you a pair of floppy black and white ears. You could get a tail as well. Just clip it to your underpants and make a hole in your robe.”

“They would know,” Saruul said, her nostrils flaring open.

“He smells that bad? I thought it was just me.”

“I’m planning to bathe tonight,” I told the two of them, suddenly feeling insecure.

“Yes, you are,” the lioness said as we took a left turn, circling around a merchant who was selling religious objects, a few children perusing them. One of the kids looked up at me and saw Roger’s head peeking out of my robes.

He pointed, his friend laughing.

I stepped back as another lion ran past, the man roaring, startling me to the point that I placed my hand on the hilt of my blade until I saw him morph into a human and hug another man.

The two patted each other on the back, hugged again, and continued into what was clearly a pub, the building marked by a mug of chung carved from wood, the sign beating in the breeze.

I couldn’t help but look back and again see the tops of the clouds, the setting sun painting them a barrage of colors, from gold to peach, ripe cherry to lavender.

I felt like we were on top of the world, like if I ran in any direction I would fall off and tumble back down the mountain, past the crackly rocks, eventually landing in a gully, where a stream would carry me to the foothills, from there to the jungle, and finally back to the beach from whence I came.

“Is that a market?” Roger asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I looked left to see a long stretch between a row of buildings that was covered by an awning, which used to be blue and was now a pale turquoise, icicles hanging from the awning’s support beams.

“It is indeed,” Saruul said, turning to me. “Shall we find a jacket for your friend?”

“It’s probably a good idea to get it ordered now,” I said.

“You may need one too. It gets pretty cold at night. Although my home can be quite warm.”

“Let’s just see how the first night goes,” I said as I followed her to the market. We stepped around a man crouched in front of an enormous scale, boulders piled on one side.

“What’s that for?” I asked her.

“To check your weight,” Saruul explained as we moved by a woman carrying a huge slab of meat on her shoulder.

There were two booths selling garments to my left, one manned by a young girl chewing on something, eyeing me curiously. The clothing got me thinking about how Saruul even wore clothes to begin with, considering she had morphed from a snow lion into her current form.

Her outfit resembled a modest bathing suit with a slit in the back for her tail. It was black, and I was surprised that wearing it didn’t make her cold. Then again, most of the women in the market that were around her age wore similar outfits, some with more layers, a few more revealing than the others.

The men had similar tights on, although theirs had leg coverings. There were people in jackets too, but the snow lion people seemed not to be affected by the cold, and upon paying closer attention, I saw that it was only my breath that was visible, no one else's.

I watched Saruul closely as she came to a tailor, wondering again at how her clothing worked.

It was something I would have to ask her.

The tailor wore a loose tunic, his muscles visible underneath, and a fur scarf that featured the head of a snow fox with hazel eyes. As he listened to her, his eyes naturally shifted to me, the man raising an eyebrow. “Let me see the bird,” he finally said after Saruul had explained what we were looking for.

“I don’t like the way he said that,” Roger mumbled as he shuffled his way out of his warm spot. He moved up to my shoulder, shivering as the man looked him over.

“Well, come on then, if you want to be measured you need to come to me to do so.”

“Nick, I know you said you would go after my reincarnation, and if this guy tries anything, I still want you to go after my reincarnation, but first I want you to kill him,” Roger said so only I could hear.

“Don’t worry.”

I grabbed Roger and handed him to the man.

“Hey, hands off!”

The tailor took Roger from me and placed him on the table, ignoring Roger’s wings as he tried to fight the man’s grip.

“Relax, bird.”

“I feel so vulnerable, so humiliated,” Roger said as he went limp. The man started measuring his body.

“You’ll be fine,” I told him.

“Don’t look at me, Nick, it’s cold out,” Roger said, now with his beak turned to the side, his eyes closed.

“That should do it,” the tailor told Roger after flipping him around and quickly measuring his back. “I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Saruul said, extending her hand to Roger.

He jumped right into her hand, Saruul allowing him to come back under my robes. His body was cold now, and I could feel his talons gripping my clavicle.

“Don’t tell anyone about that,” Roger said as we made our way out of the market.

As we approached the exit from the market, the man that we had seen earlier at the city gates, the big guy is known as Champa, took a step forward, sizing me up.

“Robes aren’t going to change what you are,” he said as I passed, ending his statement with a snort.

Roger started to laugh. “Look, everyone, we found the village virgin.”

“What was that?” Champa asked, trying to locate the sound. His nostrils flared open and he narrowed his eyes at the lump on my shoulder.

“He didn’t say anything,” Saruul told the big lion, her tail tapping on his shoulder as she passed. “You’re hearing things again, Champa. Perhaps you should visit the shaman.”

His ears flitted back, but by this point, we had passed him. He didn’t make a move on us, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have my hand on the hilt of my sword the entire time.

It was only another block or so until we came to a modest home with a large, flat space behind it that wasn’t occupied by any other buildings. There were a couple barrels in front of the home, and a well off to its side.

“I should go in first and tell my mother that you will be staying, and that you’d like her to train you,” Saruul said. “Please wait here, and try not to get into any trouble.”

She entered the home through a door the light color of driftwood, lightly shutting it behind her.

“I have to admit,” Roger said, “I wasn’t planning on watching you get your ass kicked by her lion mother for the next couple weeks, but if I can do that while wearing a fur jacket, which may end up looking more like a vest in the end, I’m good.”

I laughed. “You sure have gotten mouthy since you returned from the dead.”

“Seeing the other side really changes who you are,” he said with a shrug that lifted my robes, “but all kidding aside, I do plan to do a little meditating myself at the temple, to see what the fat monk gets into. I suppose I should not call him ‘fat’ if I want to cultivate good karma.”

“You aren’t wrong there.”

“Then again, it’s not like he can understand me anyway. If one isn’t offended by another person’s statement because they can’t understand the language, is it still negative karma?”

“Nice try,” I told the bird as I turned back to the street, watching a lion man limp by.

He was clearly drunk by the way he was dragging his legs, his back hunched over, the man looking over his shoulder at me. His face started to morph but then he hiccuped, the man cursing and moving on.

Roger shook his head. “Goddamn, there are a lot of sketchy fuckers in Dornod.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself. About the only ones that have been nice were the ones at the monastery.”

“That’s because they’re supposed to be nice. Seriously though, I have a plan for the next however long we’re stuck here in Dornod.”

“Shoot.”

“Let me ask you like this: are you familiar with Tantric practices, Nick?”

I shook my head. “You have to be joking.”

“It wasn’t me who said something about there being beautiful white birds here with red beaks. That’s what your lioness said, right? Was it red beaks?”

“I didn’t hear.”

He snorted. “Yeah, you did. Anyway, since you apparently do know the definition of the term, then I shouldn’t have to explain what I mean. I just want to see how it plays out. The odds could be in my favor.”

“Maybe. Wait a minute, didn’t you mention something to me once about your species only having one mate?”

“Yeah, I might have. And that still applies. I’m not trying to womanize up here, but a little Divine Madness never hurt anyone.”

“Are you referring to one of the paths?”

“I am. It’s a real thing, you know. We can talk about it another time, but the Path of the Divine is but one of the paths dictated by the Immortals. Divine Madness is another.”

I nodded, recalling Lhandon mentioning that once. “It’s the path that just shuns everything, right?”

“Shun isn’t the right term. It just looks at everything as bullshit and argues that one can reach a higher state of enlightenment through sin. Nalropas are the name of the people who practice this path. I’ve never personally met one.”

“So that’s your aim?”

“No, but it’s definitely something I may use to my advantage.”

“And you learned tantric sex in bird school, right?”

“No, bird college, and I didn’t learn it,” he grunted. “A friend of mine did.”

“Does this happen to be the same friend who liked the heavier birds?”

“How’d you know?” Roger cackled. “And there’s one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I need a new knife.”

I smiled as Saruul stepped out of her home. “I’m sure that can be arranged as well.”

Saruul’s mother, Dohna, had similar features to her daughter, aside from added muscle along her shoulders and crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes.

The woman had the same white hair, hers tied off into a ponytail, and she wore a black leather jacket that stopped at her midriff, the rest of her clothing similar to the bodysuit her daughter was in.

I sensed the power coming from her almost as soon as we locked eyes, which went along with something I had already figured out: the women in Dornod ran the roost.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said, neither bowing nor taking a step forward. She simply placed one hand over the other, offering me a smile.

“You should probably bow,” Roger whispered to me, nudging me by squeezing his talons.

I did so, bowing in the way that I had seen Lhandon bow at the Exonerated One and the Eternal Hermit.

“My daughter tells me you have a bird and a fire spirit with you.”

“I can speak for myself,” Roger said as he shuffled out of my robes. He flew up into the air and landed on a side table near the door. Roger bowed, and as he did so, I noticed him flash a yellow circle in the space where his wings met, something I’d never seen him do before.

“How majestic,” Dohna said, glancing at her daughter. “Flattering, even.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Saruul told her mother with a smirk, “he’s just practicing for the white birds.”

“Nonsense!” Roger bowed again and performed the gesture, the yellow circle appearing. “I always try to show as much reverence and respect as I can to a true woman, one defined by both her beauty and her power.”

Dohna chuckled. “That is quite enough, Roger. And the fire spirit?”

I brought the bottle out of the front pocket of my robes and Tashi emerged from it. He stopped growing when he was about a foot tall, flames licking off the space where the back of his neck should be.

“We appreciate your hospitality,” he said to Dohna, also offering a bow.

“It has been ages since I met an elemental spirit,” she said, nodding her head at Tashi. “You’re welcome in my home.”

After a brief conversation with her mother in hushed tones, Saruul started up the tour. “As you can see, this is the entry hall,” the lioness said, motioning toward the place where I was supposed to leave my boots.

Once my boots were off, I took a step down and found that the rock floor was warm, almost hot, confirming what I had surmised earlier: an underwater spring heated the entire village.

From the entrance, we made our way into a small living area that featured large floor cushions, elaborate tapestries of geometric shapes, and a dining area. There was also a kitchen island made of polished rock.

My eyes fell upon a slab of charred meat on the rock. A few slices had been cut out of the slab, the meat blood red on the inside.

“For dinner,” Dohna said, “I thought we would spoil ourselves with some meat, cheese, and berries. Your stomach may not be ready for the diet of a snow lion, especially the way we eat meat.”

“It looks pretty rare,” I said as I went to the island and took a slice. I tasted the cold piece of meat, noticing that it was salted in a very unique way, a hint of spice came into my mouth as I swallowed it. “It’s really good, though.”

“It would be best if you warm it for him before we eat,” Dohna told Tashi.

“Certainly.”

“We don’t want you to have an upset stomach, Nick.”

The spice at the back of my mouth continued to grow in potency as we were led up the stairs into an even more comfortable living space, featuring windows that looked out to the back yard of the house, a space defined by flat stones that stretched into the distance, clouds dipped in purple visible on the horizon.

“It’s beautiful,” Tashi said, now floating to my left, albeit in a more portable size. “Do you mind if I step out to enjoy the view?”

“By all means, fire spirit,” Dohna said as she opened the back door, letting him out. She turned to Roger. “You don’t want to go as well, do you?”

“I’m good,” he said, the tropical bird now perched on my shoulder. “Since no one has mentioned it yet, I’m expecting a fur jacket tomorrow. Maybe then I’ll go out. And that’s a big maybe.”

“You will be the talk of the town in your jacket,” Dohna said as Saruul guided us toward another flight of stairs, this one leading up to the bedrooms.

“As long as no one licks their lips while they look at me, I’m okay with that,” Roger said.

“This is where you will be staying,” Dohna said, motioning toward a bedroom on the right, the door currently shut. “And this is my bedroom,” she said, pointing at the bedroom on the left, the door open and revealing a quaint room with low ceilings and a red sleeping pad on the floor covered in silk cushions.

“What about you?” I asked Saruul.

“I’m staying with you,” she said.

Her mother nodded.

I looked at Roger to see that he was trying not to laugh.

“Great,” I said, ignoring him. I couldn’t help but smile, though, happy to see how frank the snow lion women could be.

They really didn’t skirt around anything.

“Now that you’ve had a tour I suppose we should eat a quick meal, and there are more things I need to prepare, like washing the berries a local boy sold me this morning,” Dohna said as she turned back toward the staircase made of stone. “Eat well, but do not eat too much, Nick. Your training begins tonight. Also…”

“Yes?” I asked her.

“You will need a bath. I’ll have Saruul prepare one for you.”

“It’s fine, I can do it…” I started to say, feeling embarrassed.

“Nonsense,” Saruul said, “you are my guest.”

Chapter Ten: Midnight Fighter

Saruul woke me up.

I was in her bedroom, resting on the floor as I’d been instructed to do, my head propped up by a cushion.

“It’s time,” she said, bringing a hand to my cheek.

She moved forward and kissed me.

“Your mom wasn’t kidding when she said it started tonight, was she?” I asked after a yawn. A bit of light from the street outside cut an arc into the room, illuminating a swath of her body, Saruul’s tail curled.

“I hope you’re ready for this, Nick,” she said, crouching next to me now.

“This is what I came here to do, well, and to see you, and…”

I snapped my mouth shut.

Saruul laughed. “Are your words moving faster than your mind can process them?”

“Something like that.”

“Sit here and meditate for a moment; I will massage your shoulders. You need to focus, Nick. He will be here soon.”

“Who is he again?” I asked for the second time that night.

“You’ll find out soon enough. The women of my village have come up with different ways to train their cubs, and this is the way my mother has devised. You need to get into the right mind space, though,” she said as she slipped around me, her hands falling onto my shoulders.

Following Baatar’s instructions, I imagined myself breathing through a tunnel all the way to the back of my mind, and from there down to my stomach.

I really didn’t know what was in store for me, only that I would meet “him” tonight.

Any hints I tried to get over dinner were quickly shut down by Dohna, and aside from the fact that she had been elusive as to how my training would work, she was otherwise a great hostess.

Even as I meditated, my mind started to drift to the happenings of the night, from the bath Saruul had given me, to a dessert that Dohna had prepared for us from whipped curd and tart berries, and the conversation we’d had about the Path of the Divine.

I was instructed to head upstairs and rest, and here I was, now having my shoulders massaged by Saruul.

“Are you going to be there for the start of my training?” I asked suddenly.

“You are supposed to be meditating,” she said, “and no, I’m going to sleep. I will see you when you stumble up here, if you can even make it up the stairs.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“It is not my goal to reassure you any longer; it is my goal to aid in your training. Don’t worry, you’ll survive, and tomorrow we’ll visit the monastery and see what your friend has been up to.”

“So my training is only going to happen at night?”

“Meditate,” she reminded me again. “But to answer your question, your training will happen during the day and night. But that’s all I’m allowed to say. And that you aren’t allowed to heal yourself until you’re instructed to do so. You do remember my mother telling you that, right?”

“Not until after the training,” I said.

“Exactly, no other runes either. Now meditate. Shut up.”

I did as she instructed, focusing again on my breath and coming to a pretty good space as I imagined the air moving through me, circulating, and then moving right back out.

There were a few moments that I actually had no thoughts, able to feel my body for once, the tightness of the skin over my biceps, my heart slowly beating in my chest.

Of course, this spawned a thought about how strange it was to be alive here in Lhasa, considering where I was from.

It also made me wonder about another part of all this, something that had yet to be revealed. No one had yet mentioned what happened to the original Immortals who came to Lhasa, or if any of them had ever made it back to my world.

I tried to stop that thought right there, not quite sure how I would feel if I was banished to this world forever.

Even though the place had been pretty rough with me, there were parts that I was starting to like about it, including the person currently massaging my shoulders.

There was a magic here that I hadn’t experienced in my world, and even though there were serious social problems in Lhasa, something told me this was also a place where change could be made, and that this change would spread.

Once Saruul finished, I was led downstairs, where she blindfolded me.

She guided me outside, the bitter cold instantly reaching the exposed parts of my skin.

As Saruul continued to guide me, my bare feet now on the frigid stone, I thought about asking her what to expect again.

But I knew that she wasn’t going to tell me, so I kept my mouth shut.

Eventually, she stopped, and leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

“I’ll leave you here. Keep the blindfold on until you are instructed otherwise. He will not speak to you, but he will grunt, and that’s how you will know it is time. Good luck.”

I heard Saruul shift away, the squeak of the back door shutting coming to me about a minute later.

The only other thing I could hear now was a breeze blowing over the rocks, the startled cry of an animal in the distance.

I turned to the noise, trying to judge what it was.

What if there were wolves out here? What if something attacked me?

I swallowed these thoughts.

While I wasn’t so certain that the rest of Lhasa wouldn’t abandon me, I knew that Saruul wouldn’t leave me to the wolves.

So at least there was that.

I stood for another few minutes in silence, listening for any sounds that indicated someone was approaching me.

My mind started to drift, which I encouraged it to do once I started shivering, hoping that I could lead my thoughts away from how cold it was.

A few more minutes passed, and my teeth started chattering.

“Hello?” I said at some point, when I thought I heard movement.

Nothing.

I remembered Baatar mentioning controlling one’s body warmth.

Figuring I would put it to the test, I started taking in deep breaths, ignoring the cold, imagining a warmth radiating through me.

At first, it did nothing, but then I changed the way I was thinking about what I was doing, now imagining an actual fire, the plumes lifting from my gut and spreading up my chest and out my arms.

I moved from heel to heel, shaking my hands, inhaling deep breaths and disregarding how cold they felt against the inside of my nostrils.

The flame inside me grew brighter.

And as if to test me, a breeze blew past, ruffling the ends of my robes.

I ignored the wind, now focused on a flame I could see in my mind’s eye, the fire burning in my stomach.

I was still cold, but I was now so focused on creating an artificial inner warmth that the coldness took less of my focus.

And it was then that I heard the grunt.

As I’d been instructed, I removed the blindfold, my eyes adjusting to the brightness caused by the moon.

A man stood before me, the moon behind him.

He wore black robes and a black mask detailed with white lines framing his face. The man was a snow lion, evident in his tail, but other than that I had no idea who he was.

The spot Saruul had led me to was pretty barren, aside from a large boulder off to my left. I didn’t know how far we were from her home, and I didn’t have time to turn and find out as the man brought his fists up. Even though my hands were numb from the cold, I did the same.

He advanced on me, sweeping me off my feet before I could throw my first punch. The man chopped my throat and scrambled away, right back to his fighting pose as I started to cough.

I was just catching my breath when he delivered a heel to the small of my back, a cracking sound meeting my ears.

He was in front of me again, his fists at the ready.

My throat still aching, I made my way to my feet, wiping blood from my lips.

The masked lion man came forward with a strike and I blocked it with my arms.

His right shin met the side of my head.

An explosion of colors inside my brain was followed by my body hitting the ground.

I rolled once, pressing myself up only to have the man sink a fist into my ribs, cracking a few of them.

I was wheezing now, coughing up blood, pain radiating through me.

He wasn’t finished.

The lion man kicked me in the stomach just as soon as I could get up. I went to the ground again and he kicked me in the ribs and the side of my body until my organs shrieked.

“Asshole,” I said as I managed to grab onto his ankle.

I brought my fist back and punched him in the side of the leg, shattering the bone, a ripple of energy sending him backward.

He stumbled and eventually fell, the man holding his leg as he looked over to me, a growl emitting from his throat.

I noticed a shift in his mask as he morphed into an absolutely enormous snow lion.

The lion slammed into me, flipped me over, and started mauling me as I tried to push him away, his teeth gnashing inches away from my face as I tried to protect myself.

He reared back and swiped his claws across my chest, tearing through the fabric and ripping into my flesh.

He did this again and again until I was a trembling, broken and beaten, bloodied mess.

The lion got off and glared down at my face. I swore at that moment he was about to eat me but instead he roared, the terrifying sound nearly popping my eardrums, everything going black for a moment.

And then he ran off.

“Mother… fucker…” I whispered as I tried to move to my side, feeling the sting of his claws across my chest.

I was a tattered, bloodied mess, barely able to see, my muscles, bones, and inner organs screaming at me.

I looked left to see a pair of feet approaching me.

“Heal yourself,” Dohna said, her voice just above a whisper, “I will have more robes delivered in the morning.”

“Who… who was that?”

She crouched down in front of me. “Not bad,” she finally said, once she finished looking me over.

I searched her eyes for a flicker of concern and didn’t find any.

Instead, Dohna turned back to the house. “Heal up,” she called over her shoulder.

I awoke the next morning with Saruul in my arms.

I looked down at her and kissed her forehead, her ears twitching as she blinked her eyes open.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked me softly.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that last night wasn’t brutal,” I told her. “If it weren’t for the healing ability, I’d be in a hospital somewhere. This place does have a hospital, right?”

She gave me a funny look. “What kind of village do you think this is? Of course we have a hospital.”

“Good, because I didn’t see it. And I actually wouldn’t know what it looked like anyway, unless it was marked.”

“Let’s have breakfast,” she said, her nostrils flaring open. “It should be ready soon.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about how this works.”

“Which part?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Not my training; I figured you wouldn’t tell me anything about that anyway.”

“Correct.”

“No, I was referring to your morphing and your powers. You still maintain the hearing and smelling ability of a lion in this form, correct?”

I sniffed the air to prove my point, showing her that I couldn’t smell anything that resembled breakfast.

“Correct.”

“I have another stupid question.”

“You are only allowed two per day, so choose wisely.”

“Where does your clothing go when you turn into a lion?”

Saruul smirked. “It goes to my stripes.”

“I get it, it’s all magical.”

Saruul got out of the bed. She was completely nude now, her skin almost translucent. The lioness slowly turned to me and showed me her ass, her tail bouncing in the air as she gave it a quick shake.

“You certainly know how to get my attention.”

“I was going to explain to you how this works,” she said, shaking her hips again.

I placed my hands behind my head, sitting up a little bit. “Explain away.”

“The clothing we wear, or any clothing you have seen on any person in this village, is specially designed for our morphing,” she said as she started to slip into her one-piece bathing suit. “I have different styles, and they are mostly black, which is easiest in my opinion. It’s a special type of fabric that was developed by my people, alongside a clever alchemist a very long time ago. When we morph, it forms the black stripes on our bodies. In the males, a lot of it goes to their manes. We don’t actually have black in our bodies anymore, aside from our ears and our tails. That’s how you know if a lion is wearing clothing or not.”

“You’re going to have to show me before and after,” I said as she finished putting her top on, adjusting her breasts.

Saruul morphed into a snow lion and leaped onto the bed, stopping right in front of my face as she pressed her paws on my shoulders.

“Can you talk in this form?” I asked her, swallowing hard as I took in the size of her teeth.

She shook her head, and as if she were an oversized house cat, I lightly placed my hand on her and petted her back.

A cross look came over her face, but then she sort of seemed to like it, inching her shoulder a little closer to me so I could scratch it.

She sat down and I pressed back slightly to get my legs out from beneath her.

Even though I knew who she was, I was still having a hard time processing the fact that there was an actual snow lioness sitting on the bed casually staring at me. I even glanced at the door once or twice, just to make sure that I had an exit.

Saruul moved back to her feet and came to my side, nudging me until she knocked me over. She lay down with her back against mine, her tail occasionally slapping against me.

“You’re definitely warmer this way,” I told her.

She morphed back to her human form, barely able to contain her laughter.

“You looked like you were going to make a run for it!”

“I mean, I sort of was. It’s not often that…” I shook my head.

“It’s not often that you see a lion in the bedroom that you’re staying in? Have you been seeing other lions?”

“I’m pretty sure you would know if I had been,” I told her as I reached over and pinched her nose.

“Careful,” she told me she rolled on top of me. She squeezed her legs around me and looked down at my face. “We should go to breakfast.”

“Sure, let’s do that…”

There were several sets of white robes waiting outside the door. I quickly changed into one of them and headed downstairs to find Roger and Tashi seated around the table. Dohna set a bowl of porridge in front of me, my curiosity piqued by the huge chunks of bacon in it.

“They’re sugar-glazed,” Saruul’s mother explained. “There’s a butcher on the other side of the city whose family is dedicated to mastering the art of curing meats.”

“This is from Beard’s Bacons?” Saruul asked.

“Only the best for our guests,” her mother said.

Curious as to how it would taste, I used what resembled a spork to get some of the porridge and stabbed into a piece of the bacon at the same time. While the porridge was hot, the bacon was cold, yet it melted in my mouth almost as if it were warm caramel, offering me an incredible flavor the likes of which I’d never tasted before.

“My God, this is amazing,” I said, smiling up at Dohna.

“Slow down,” Saruul’s mother told me. “We have some training to do after breakfast; it’s bad for your digestive system to eat too quickly.”

“Sure,” I said, actually swallowing my next bite before going for another.

“So, you had to fight a ninja lion in the middle of the night, huh?” Roger asked.

“Yeah.”

“Anything you want to say about that?”

“No,” I told him with a smile. “I got my ass handed to me. I’ll admit it.”

“You have the same test tonight,” Dohna said as she handed her daughter a bowl of porridge. “And every night that you’re in Dornod.”

“Same guy?” I asked, remembering the man in the black mask.

“It could vary. I have to keep you on your toes.”

After breakfast, Dohna instructed me to follow her outside.

“Stop there,” she said, walking in front of me, toward the puffy clouds on the horizon.

The air was cold, and for a moment I felt like pulling my sleeves down to cover my hands. But then I remembered what I’d done the previous night, using my inner warmth, and while it was a little harder to do it now, perhaps because I wasn’t blindfolded, I tried to imagine a fire burning in my body, warming me.

It wasn’t long before my body was naturally warmed by the calisthenics Saruul’s mother put me through. What started off as push-ups became an excruciating exercise that saw me jumping from foot to foot, then down to a push-up position, and back up to my feet.

I kept waiting for Roger to laugh at me, but the bird had gone to the market with Saruul, something I was definitely glad about.

Tashi was there, however, and once I got the hang of some of the moves, Dohna instructed him to come closer to me, to create a circle of fire around me.

From there she had me doing squats, and then some modified yoga poses that reminded me more of the way a lion would move rather than a human. Tashi remained in a ring of fire around me, my body and clothing quickly covered in sweat.

By the time we finished, every muscle in my body was sore, my robes were drenched, and my lungs were barely able to oxygenate my blood. I started to fall and as I did, I stopped myself with one knee, pushing myself to my feet.

“Good,” Dohna said. “Now, let’s get inside and clean up. It’s time to visit the temple.”

Chapter Eleven: Lhandon’s First Transmission

“I am humbled by the fact that you can be here for this.” Lhandon sat on a raised platform. Jigme the lion monk was to his left and Altan to his right.

We were in a smaller, octagonal room on the west side of the temple which offered views of the clouds. Hanging from the wall were elaborate paintings featuring lion monks in various meditative postures with runic characters around them which matched the frescos painted above us.

Tashi sat on the tip of a candle that had been strategically placed on the low table before me. Gansukh floated to my left, its legs crossed in a seated position. Roger would have been here, but for some reason, his trip to the market with Saruul was taking longer than expected.

“Since some of this is being written as I speak,” Lhandon said, nodding toward Altan, “it will be used for the updated version of the Path of the Divine. I will start with a recap, including why I have decided to update the commonly read version, and mass produce it as well.”

Lhandon cleared his throat and looked to Jigme, who simply nodded.

“The Way of the Immortals is a collection of text and oral traditions that describe the various paths toward enlightenment through the cultivation of karma. It is generally divided into five paths. The Path of the Divine is, in my humble opinion, the most beneficial way to truly cultivate good, to cultivate inner power, and to aid in a mutually beneficial rebirth. I use the term ‘mutually beneficial’ because the practitioner’s rebirth will not only be good for the practitioner, but it will also be good for the public at large.”

There was something different about Lhandon, a leadership component to his persona that I had only seen a few times, which was naturally aided by where he sat and who he was surrounded by. It made me proud of the man and how he had progressed.

“For the betterment of all humankind, it is important that people know who the Immortals actually were. With this in mind, a summarized version of the Book of the Immortals will appear in the updated book of the Path of the Divine.”

Lhandon paused for a moment as one of the younger lion monks entered, whispered something in Jigme’s ear, and left.

He continued. “The Path of the Divine has traditionally been broken down into seven stages. Those stages are the novice stage, or Broken Sword; the cultivator stage, or Wheel with a Rusty Axle; the advanced student stage, or Ink in the Sea; the teacher stage, or Wolf Stalking a Lantern; the master stage, or Hollow Peacock; the divine master stage, or Spineless Book; and the reborn student stage, otherwise known as a Golden One. The updated version will continue to utilize these stages, but it will break them down into steps that a practitioner, be they a monk or a layperson, will be able to follow and gain benefit from. To build a sense of community, and to accurately manage people’s progression, only those at the teacher stage or higher will be able to certify that someone has officially moved to the next level.”

I nodded, glad for the recap. There were a lot of terms thrown around regarding the Way of the Immortals, and I knew it would benefit the public to put it into concise terms.

“The monastic setup will be aided by this relationship between teachers and masters. To clarify, teachers, traditionally taking part in the Wolf Stalking a Lantern stage, aren’t at a different level than the master, or the Hollow Peacock stage. It is good to think of them as on the exact same plane, the teacher path for a monk who wants to move to a level that allows them to initiate others, and the master path for hermits, and in this case, for those aspiring to be hermits, who go off to caves and other retreats to practice karmic cultivation in a more abstract away. So, it is best to think of them as on the same level. The only way to become a divine master at the Spineless Book stage would be to have done both the teacher training and the master training. But more on that later. Today, we’re going to focus on just the novice level, Broken Sword. Before we begin, are there any questions?”

Lhandon looked at me, and I shrugged.

There were three of us seated before him, and it seemed a little strange to ask questions at this point, but he waited patiently for one, and a question eventually came to me: “You mentioned the power as something that is cultivated, but is this the same Power that I possess, that we’ve used to describe what I can do?” I asked, referring to my ability to slow down time.

“A very good question, and it is something I will touch on in the new version of the Path of the Divine, albeit later on in the book. But to answer your question briefly, no, it is not the same power. If I tried my entire life to cultivate karmic power, I would not have your ability, although there are other powers that I would gain because I’m not a Golden One.”

“That is correct,” Jigme said, taking over. “The whole point of becoming a Golden One is to start the cycle again, and according to the Path of the Divine, and not only this path, but other paths through the Way of the Immortals, the only true way to become a Golden One is to come to this world from another. It is something to aspire to, something to possibly look forward to if one makes it through all the stages, or if we are looking at the past interpretation of it, to have cultivated enough karma to actually be reborn in a different world, and then return to this world.”

“What if someone is reborn in the Underworld or the Overworld and they come back here? Are they considered a Golden One?”

Lhandon looked to Jigme, and Jigme continued: “From the interpretations that I have read, based on some of the older manuscripts in our library here at the Temple of Eternal Sky, the answer to that question is no. For one to go from the Overworld or the Underworld to the Middle Plane, to where we currently are, they have to be reborn. So it is in no way breaking that cycle. They are simply born there, cultivate enough there to be reborn here, but they don’t reach the stage of a Golden One.”

“To be clear, if you agree with the assumption that I’m a Golden One, which everyone seems to, because I came through a portal from a different world, does that mean that a past version of myself went through all of these steps?”

“Yes, we believe so,” Lhandon said, taking over. “The Path of the Divine has yet to be codified, until now. It was more of a tradition based on new lessons once a student had memorized older ones, same with scripts, and, to be fair, a lot of it was based on how the head monk interpreted the student’s progress, so there was room for bias in the past version. You are not a Golden One until you come here from a different world entirely, a world not officially connected to this world, similar to the first Immortals. And to make it even rarer, from what the texts say, the condition for someone to come from your world to this world only happens every thousand years or so. So yes, you must have cultivated in a previous life, and yes, you are technically a Golden One already.”

“Yet we think,” I said, motioning between Lhandon and me, “that the reason I came here was because somebody did something in the Overworld, correct?”

“Correct,” Lhandon told me, “but there is always room for error, and as we progress on our journey, we may discover that we are wrong. We have to be ready to admit and work with that. Does that answer your question?”

“In a way. To summarize: anyone that comes from my world, planet Earth, to this world is considered a Golden One. To be a Golden One means that you instantly reach that level and then start back again at the novice stage, or Broken Sword. To have become a Golden One in the first place means that a former version of me must have cultivated enough karma, negative or positive, to be reborn on my planet. Finally, a Golden One cannot be from the Overworld or the Underworld.”

“Because if they could be,” Tashi said, jumping into the conversation, “what’s to stop a demon from the Underworld getting powerful enough to simply create a portal to come here and claim they are a Golden One?”

“Precisely,” Jigme said. “Lesser demons have already come here, and according to what Lhandon has told me, you may have already faced off against one.”

“You mean Madame Mabel?” I asked, recalling the terrifying monster she had morphed into in the end.

“Precisely.”

“So, getting back onto the topic at hand,” Lhandon said, “let’s talk about the new way the Broken Sword level, or novice, will be handled.”

He waited for a moment for Altan to scratch the notes to the parchment. Once the former slave was ready, he looked up and Lhandon continued: “All of the stages on the Path of the Divine must be initiated through being blessed by a holy object, the same ritual must take place for a merchant and for a young monk. For the first stage, the practitioner will start by being blessed, and then they will be given instructions on a meditation series regarding compassion and the cultivation of karma. These instructions will be in the book of the Path of the Divine. Monks will learn the basics, including folding robes and making candles and incense, and the layperson will satisfy a similar requirement in their own homes to be determined by their teacher. There will be a physical component as well, the practitioner being required to make one thousand prostrations. A quick note I should make regarding a layperson versus a monk: we want the people of Lhasa and the rest of the world to be able to embrace and utilize these techniques, however, they cannot move past the stage of a cultivator, or Wheel with a Rusty Axle, without becoming a monk, at least for the time being. I wanted to clarify that.”

“How will the teacher know if the student has actually performed all of the prostrations?” I asked.

“Good question. The teacher will know through a modified Rune of Inquiry. Jigme and I are developing it now, but it basically allows one to lay out rice or another grain, cast the rune on the rice, and then get the number of prostrations that have been made. Of course, as the student progresses, they will be able to learn runes as well, but not for the first stage. For the first stage, we want things to be as clear-cut as possible; we want the practitioner to truly embrace the limitations of the Path before discovering its benefits and secrets.”

I waited patiently with my blindfold over my eyes, knowing full well that the odds of me winning a fight against the lion man in the black mask were slim to none.

It was late, cold, and as I stood there, I thought back to what Lhandon had said earlier in the day.

It was starting to become clearer why Baatar had wanted us to come here.

It was the spark we needed, from my combat and mindfulness training, to Lhandon being able to work with Jigme in restructuring the Path of the Divine.

I only wished that I could read the language, so I could read the Book of the Immortals myself. I had taken yet another look at it back at the temple, and sure enough, none of the text made any sense to me.

Sure, I recognized a few of the characters, but that was about it.

Altan and Lhandon were alternating the copy making process, and Lhandon claimed to know the owner of a printing house back in Bamda, which was where he would send a copy of the Book of the Immortals, and the revised book detailing the Path of the Divine.

I smirked.

There were so many titles and concepts that sounded similar that it was hard to wrap my head around it at times. I was glad that they had recapped things in the way that they did, and that they were always generous with their explanations and gentle with their time.

What an experience.

As I stood blindfolded, waiting for my opponent, I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t hear the grunt that signaled I needed to remove my blindfold.

And for my inattention, I was rewarded with a strike to the face that sent me straight to the ground.

“Fuck,” I whispered to myself as I pulled my blindfold off, slowly pressing back to my feet.

The masked man came at me again; I barely managed to sidestep his attack.

Dohna had taught me some about being light on my feet, and I tried to take her advice as I avoided yet another one of the lion man’s attacks, pretending as if there was a ball attached to my heel giving me an added spring.

While I wasn’t allowed to heal myself or use runes, no one had said anything yet about not using my power to slow time. And while I couldn’t simply turn it on, I knew that there were ways it could be triggered, including extreme punishment or apprehension.

But I wanted to activate it in a different way, a more balanced way.

As I took my first swing at the man, which was quickly blocked, I again honed in on my breath.

Even as a leg swept me to the ground, knocking the air out of me, I managed to sustain the blow, shift to my side, and avoid a stomp as I rolled back to my feet.

The man jumped in the air to kick me, and as he did, time came to a stop.

I stepped to the right of his foot, and brought my hand back, smashing my fist into the side of his face as time returned to its normal pace.

The man flew to the left, an arc of blood trailing him. Amazingly, he landed on his feet by way of an aerial.

He jumped into the air and I did so at the same time, both of us rising as I blocked his punches, gravity no longer a concern.

As we moved higher into the air, I focused on blocking his attacks, the man punching even faster, his eyes narrowing behind his mask.

Once we were about eight feet up, time stopped again, and I used this as an opportunity to kick off the man’s body.

I slapped both hands on the back of his head and pressed off the air as if it were the ceiling of the world, sending both of us careening to the ground, where I slammed the man’s head into the rock.

For a moment I was certain that I’d killed him, even lifting my hand to activate my healing ability hoping to help him.

I learned of my mistake when he flipped back to his feet and delivered a kick to my chin that sent me straight onto my back.

He got on top of me, holding my shoulders down with his knees as he started to sink punches into my face. Each hit sent an explosion of colors through my brain, my arms barely able to get up in time and block his attack.

Using all my might, I rolled him over and tried to get on top of him, only to be kicked off, the wind knocked out of me yet again. I took a deep breath in just as the masked man leaped into the air and brought both fists down onto my chest.

The impact instantly knocked me out, and it was only later, I had no idea how much later, that Saruul’s mother woke me up.

“You need to heal yourself,” she said, a concerned look on her face.

“I’m okay,” I said, wheezing, blood on my lips.

“No, you’re not.” Dohna helped me lift my hand, and as she did, I traced up my healing rune.

I lowered my hand over my chest, feeling the bone start to mend itself, a deep breath reaching all the way down to the bottom of my lungs, a sense of euphoria spreading into my head.

“I’ll help you get inside,” she said once I was able to stand. “You did good, but tomorrow night, you will do better.”

Chapter Twelve: Winter Moon Festival

I awoke, and for a moment I thought I saw Dema standing before me, my dakini staring down at me with fondness in her eyes. But blinking a couple more times adjusted my vision. It wasn’t her at all, it was Saruul, who quickly hopped back into the bed and got under the blankets.

“How do you feel?” she asked as she pressed her body next to mine.

“Not too bad considering…” I closed my eyes, recalling my fight with the black-masked lion man. I shook my head, disappointed that I hadn’t done more damage.

“You will do better tonight.”

“Your mom seems to think the same thing as well.”

Saruul smiled, her canines suddenly visible. “There’s a festival tonight, and I was hoping you and I could go together.”

“You’re not worried that I will attract attention?”

She tucked her head under my chin, one of her ears grazing against me. My right hand was on her lower back now, just above her tail. “I am fine if you attract attention. Your being here has been nice for me, and my mother likes you, Nick. I like you.”

“I just wish we could spend a little more time together,” I told her. “With the stuff at the monastery and the constant training…”

“It’s fine. I understand the importance of what you’re doing, and…”

“Yes?”

“I believe it will be hard when you go, but that is something I will have to deal with at that time.”

“You could come with us,” I told her. “I’m sure a snow lion has never visited the Island Kingdom of Jonang.”

“You know I don’t do well at sea level, and to get to Sarpang, where you’ll need to go to take a ship to the Island Kingdom, would mean crossing the Great Plateau. And aside from that, what happens when I’m at sea?”

“You can swim, right?”

“Not in this form,” she said with a playful smirk.

“It’s just something to consider.”

Once we were dressed, we headed downstairs to find Roger and Tashi speaking to Dohna. Roger was going on about how he had finally found some of the white birds with red beaks that Saruul had told him about, and how they’d had a bit of a party last night.

It was weird seeing him in his new fur wrappings, even though I’d seen him wearing it yesterday. Roger’s body was turquoise, his tail feathers yellow, but the fur was white and made from the hide of a snow fox.

“And there is the man of the hour,” Roger said as I took a seat next to him.

“Morning, Roger. Sorry to interrupt. Continue.”

“There’s not much more to say about the bird party, but you were right, Saruul,” Roger told the beautiful lioness.

“About what?”

“I am the talk of the town.”

“And you are certain it isn’t your fur wrapping?” I asked him.

“I prefer to refer to it as a vest,” Roger said, sticking his tongue out at me. “And I think I’m going to have a few other ones made. It’s good to have a wardrobe. I always wanted to be human anyway. Why not get a little fancy with what I wear? Maybe a hat for warmer weather, perhaps a scarf. The sky's the limit for a bird, literally. Besides, there’s no telling what climates we will venture to next. I mean, sure, an island kingdom will probably be pretty humid, but if we go higher into the mountains, well, now I’m prepared. And you won’t have to worry about me tucked under your robes, digging my claws into your flesh as I shiver.”

“That will be nice,” I said, playfully massaging my shoulder.

Dohna smiled at me. “And you rested well, Nick?” she asked as she placed a bowl of porridge in front of me, thick chunks of bacon sticking out of it.

“I believe so, yes.”

“Maybe you’re asking the wrong person,” Roger joked, glancing at Saruul.

Dohna’s eyes narrowed on him. “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing,” Roger said, launching back into the story about his party with the white birds. “Look, I know that the lions around here don’t pay much attention to the birds, but let me be the first to tell you: those birds are good company. They’re so much more hospitable than the birds down at sea level. Less competitive too. Several of the womenfolk seemed interested, and none of the guys tried to buck up to me or start any trouble. They all seem so cool with it, which makes me think…” Roger hopped around for a moment, considering his next words.

“Yes?” I asked him after I had taken my first bite of porridge.

“Maybe they’re some serious swingers,” he said with a shrug. “And just to be clear, my particular species is not too keen on the swinging lifestyle. Aside from the buddy I told you about, the one that liked the more voluptuous birds, we usually only have one mate for life, and if that mate dies, well, then we may get another. I’m not getting that vibe up here, though.”

“Different places, different birds,” Tashi said. The fire spirit was about ten inches tall at the moment, floating to the left of Roger, his fiery arms behind his back.

“I guess you’re right,” Roger told him with a shrug. “I may have to adjust to it. I mean, after we leave here, and once we hit the Island Kingdom, I’m going to be pretty cosmopolitan if I do say so myself. And I have this feeling that’s not the last kingdom we’re gonna go to, aside from Lhasa. Who knows what kind of clothing I’ll pick up.”

“I have no idea,” I told him.

“That’s how these adventures work, you know. You start off going one way, and something leads you in another. So Paro, Rinpunga, Tsirang? Sure, let’s check them all out. I’m ready for the world tour.”

“One place at a time,” I told him after swallowing another lump of porridge. “Will you be joining me to meet with Lhandon today? I believe that he’s doing a ritual for Gansukh, to thank the ice spirit before he frees it.”

“The birds were all planning to go take a bath in a hot spring nearby. But as nice as that sounds, I don’t know if I’m interested in getting out of my fur vest.”

“Why not? Couldn’t you just get right back into it?”

Roger ran his left wing over his head, a few of the feathers slicking back. “They sort of think that this is part of my body.”

Dohna and Saruul laughed.

“You didn’t tell them that you were wearing a vest?” Tashi asked, a lick of flame lifting off the crown of his head.

“Why would I? Look at this fox fur,” Roger said, showing everyone his back and wagging his yellow tail feathers. “How unique is this? I look part mammal at the moment, which is something they’ve never seen up here. You should have seen how many of them wanted to touch my fur chest. I don’t want to let them down.”

“You’ve been lying to them?” Tashi asked.

“Calm your flames, Tashi, it’s a white lie, and technically I haven’t lied to them, I just haven’t admitted what it is to them.”

“So you’re just going to always stay in the fur vest while the birds are around?”

Roger nodded at me. “What’s the harm in that?”

“What if you end up…” I thought about what I was going to say and went ahead and said it anyway. “What if you end up fornicating with one of them? Won’t you have to take the fur off to, you know…”

“For your information, Nick, there is a little slit down there—I mean on my fur coat, not on the female bird, of course they have a slit—not that I need a little slit, but it is there, which the tailor put in just for this purpose. Actually, I think he put it in so I could go to the restroom, but it will work for this purpose as well. But you know what? This conversation has gotten out of hand. I apologize, Dohna.”

“I think it’s fascinating.” Saruul was now bent forward with her hands under her chin, her elbows resting on the island countertop as she watched Roger.

“Enough, enough,” Roger said, flapping his wings. “I’m going to the monastery with you, screw the potential orgy at the hot springs. Are we going after breakfast?”

“No,” Dohna said, returning her focus to me. “We’re going to train after breakfast and then you may go. I assumed Saruul has already told you about the festival tonight. Please have as much fun as you’d like, but stay away from the chung. Your training will continue once you return home from the festival.”

“Before we begin today, I would like Gansukh to come forward.” Lhandon sat on his raised platform with Jigme to his left and Altan to his right, parchment spread before the former slave.

My legs were sore from the calisthenics that Dohna had put me through earlier. It had been pretty brutal, and Roger had been there this time to tease me whenever it looked like I was about to give up.

We had eventually had lunch, and upon arriving at the temple, I stopped in Bobby’s room to check on him.

A little color had returned to his face, but he was still knocked out, his eyes sometimes twitching. For a moment I thought that he was going to look up at me, that he was finally going to awaken.

But he never did.

And about that point, after Altan had come in to apply more of the medicine he concocted from local ingredients, we had been called to one of the prayer rooms.

I was seated in front of the three monks, alongside Saruul, with Roger on the table to my right. Tashi floated in the corner as did Gansukh, who came forward once Lhandon had asked for it.

The ice spirit bowed.

“As promised, I will now free you from servitude,” Lhandon said a smile on his face. “Thank you for defending my monastery and providing us with nourishment during our trip through the Darkhan Mountains. I encourage you to continue practicing, and perhaps once we have finished codifying the Path of the Divine, it will be something you will be willing to take up.”

“Perhaps, but I have some things I need to work through first. And before I go,” the ice spirit said in its very neutral voice, “I have a gift for you.”

“Please, you shouldn’t have…”

A wisp of ice lifted from Gansukh’s form, a finger taking shape. It drew three vertical stripes in the air, topping it with a curved line and a circle above the line.

“No…” Lhandon started to say, his throat quivering as a crystal blue energy swelled forward, crackling as it radiated around his forearms. Gansukh’s form lost its color almost immediately, just a small amount of its face still visible.

“It is more useful to you than me,” Gansukh said, the ice spirit’s voice just above a whisper. “Ra-Lhak. This rune can only be learned from an elemental spirit, and by casting it, you are able to turn things to ice with the touch of your hand. I don’t know what your journey ahead holds for you, Exalted One, but I do know that this may help. Thank you.”

And before Lhandon could say anything, Gansukh was gone, the ice spirit simply fading away.

“Such selflessness!” Altan exclaimed.

“Gansukh really was good in the end,” Tashi said, shaking. “How pious of Gansukh.”

“I’m so confused here,” I told Saruul under my breath. “Does this mean Gansukh is dead?”

“No,” Roger said, answering for the snow lioness, “the ice spirit just no longer has power.”

“Then why did Gansukh disappear?”

Jigme called for one of the lion monks at the back of the prayer space to retrieve a cup of tea.

The young monk left just as Roger answered my question: “Probably for karmic reasons.”

“Then again, maybe it was just being a spirit,” Saruul said. “They work in mysterious ways.”

Tashi nodded. “Some of us do, others of us are a little clearer in our goals and intentions. I believe Gansukh knew it would be more beneficial for the Exalted One to possess the power.”

“I just didn’t expect it to leave like that…” I said as the young monk reentered the room.

He brought a cup of piping hot tea to Lhandon, who glanced apprehensively from the cup of tea to Jigme.

“Give it a try.”

“Right.” Lhandon placed a finger on the rim of the teacup, and as he did, the cup began to crystallize, the tea hardening until the entire thing was frozen solid. He looked up at me and nodded. “I don’t know when I will use something like this, but I’m sure there will be a time. I will pray for Gansukh tonight. May it cultivate enough karma to leave our plane, and return to its own, only to be reborn where it so chooses.”

Jigme whispered a mantra, and as he did so, the young monk at the back bowed his head, also whispering the same mantra.

“I suppose we should begin,” Lhandon said, looking to Roger. “I’m glad you could join us today. Your presence was missed yesterday, and in case anyone hasn’t told you, your new fur attire looks marvelous.”

“Thanks,” Roger said, his tail feathers fanning out. “And about yesterday: something came up; I figured coming today would allow me to skip the recap portion. There was a lengthy recap portion yesterday, right? Besides, I needed to get fitted for my fur vest. I know that this is important and all, but it’s freezing here, and if I’m going to sit through hours of meditation and mindfulness, I want to be warm when I do so.”

I smirked at the bird, and I could see that Saruul was doing the same thing.

“What is he saying?” Lhandon asked.

“He’s saying that he’s glad that he’s here now,” I translated for Roger. “And that he apologizes for his absence yesterday.”

“Wonderful. Now, it has come to my attention that you are missing something, Roger,” Lhandon told him as he reached into the front of his robes. He retrieved the knife that we had taken from Baatar’s bag, which now had a leather strip tied through a hole in the bottom of the hilt.

“Just what I was looking for,” Roger said. “I don’t really have a place to put it, no pocket on this vest, but I’m sure Nick can find a place.”

“He wants me to hold it for him,” I translated.

“Great,” Lhandon said as he pushed the knife to the edge of the cushion that he sat on, waiting for Roger to retrieve it.

The bird lifted into the air and quickly made his way over to Lhandon, where he grabbed the knife and returned to me.

The knife clanked against the wood as Roger lightly placed it on the low table. The hilt was made of polished bone, its sheath also cut into the same bone so that it looked like a solid piece when the knife wasn’t out. It fit pretty snuggly as well, the sheath not falling off in the process of being carried over to me.

“Today is the day that we begin the novice stage on the Path of the Divine, a day that we all start over again as Broken Swords, regardless of where we assume we are on the Path. We will first start by being initiated by a holy object, then we will begin a meditation on compassion and karma. Because the meditation can be long, we will break it up by performing prostrations. Remember, to progress to the next stage will take one thousand prostrations, which Jigme or I will be able to check. Once Altan reaches the advanced student stage, he will be able to check this as well. I think it is important that we all start at the same level, even though there are inherent hierarchies in the room based on the experiences we already have and our time at various monasteries. I want to go through the same things that a novice experiences. I want to make sure the system that I have co-devised actually produces results.”

I nodded at Lhandon, letting him know that we were ready.

“Each of you will now go to the blessing ritual,” Lhandon said, motioning us toward Jigme.

Jigme reached for what looked like the skull of an elephant. He removed a portion of the skull to retrieve a small, golden lapel inside.

“This lapel belonged to the founder of the Temple of Eternal Sky, Tsering the Uplifted. He wore it his entire life and on his deathbed ordered that it was to be tossed off the Lion’s Peak, which is on the eastern side of the Darkhan Mountain Range. Twenty witnesses saw that it was tossed off the peak, disappearing into the valley below. Yet when Tsering died, and after his body was cremated, the golden lapel was found in his ashes. We will use this as our holy object for the ceremony.”

“I’m going first,” Roger said as he flew over to the lion monk.

He bowed before Jigme, waiting patiently as the lion monk lightly touched either side of Roger’s fur-wrapped shoulders with the lapel. The monk said the mantra and then told Roger he was officially a Broken Sword.

“That easy, huh?” Roger said as he flew back to me.

Jigme handed the lapel to Lhandon, who motioned Altan forward, performing the same ritual.

Once Lhandon was done, he then asked that I come forward.

I came to Lhandon and glanced up at him for just a moment, remembering in that instant the first time I’d seen him back at the monastery, when he had led me to my bedroom.

I bowed my head and Lhandon performed the ritual, whispering the same mantra that Jigme had said.

Once he was finished, he handed the lapel back to Jigme.

Saruul came forward next and stopped before the lion monk, kneeling before him so he could bless her with the lapel.

She looked up at him with fondness in her eyes. After he was finished, she turned back to me. I wanted to pull her into my arms at that moment, but I knew better, offering her a smile in its place.

Finally, Tashi came, the fire spirit reducing his size. He stopped in front of Jigme, the lion monk lifting his hand out to the fire spirit, beckoning him forward.

Tashi hesitated.

“Go on. You can move onto the palm of my hand,” Jigme assured him.

Tashi reduced his size even further.

He slowly moved to the tip of Jigme’s finger and from there, to the center of his palm.

Tashi burned a line in the monk’s flesh, Jigme barely noticing. As calmly as he had blessed the others, Jigme performed the ritual, Tashi moving away immediately once he was finished.

“Wonderful,” Lhandon said as Jigme cast a rune that allowed him to heal his palm. “After tea, we will start the conversation on compassion and karma, as well as its subsequent meditation. We will then try to do a hundred prostrations today. Once that is finished, I will go over the requirements for the second level, the cultivator stage, Wheel with a Rusty Axle. After that…”

Lhandon looked at me.

“After that, we have plans to go to the Winter Moon festival,” I told him.

“You do? That’s excellent. I would like to join you then. It would be nice to be among the people.”

Chapter Thirteen: Wrestling with Ego

My body hurt.

Between Dohna’s calisthenics and the prostrations, my thighs and my lower back were killing me. I wasn’t allowed to heal myself, and even if I were, I would probably need to save that for later in the night, when I faced off against my midnight opponent.

I figured it would take me a couple more tries to actually bring the lion man down, or at least hurt him as I had done the first night. Who knew, maybe tonight was the night.

I certainly hoped that was the case.

It was evening now, and our vantage point on the steps of the Temple of Eternal Sky gave us an unobstructed view of the village, and the festival on its far southern end.

There were paper lanterns in the air, similar to the ones that I had seen during the fight I’d had against the young girl and the cat man back in Nagchu.

As we took the steps down, I recalled how strange my first twenty-four hours had been here, to first be sold as a slave and then considered powerful enough to be put on trial through the fight.

How different would my story have turned out had I joined Mabel’s elite guard?

For one, I would have met with Bobby earlier, but I wouldn’t have made it into the mountains, and who knew if I would have ever met Lhandon. Plus, there was no telling how Evan would have acted.

He had already betrayed me by that point.

Roger interrupted my train of thought when he landed on my shoulder, tucking his feathers into his sides, the collar of his fur vest fluffed up and cozy around his neck. Saruul was next to me, and Lhandon was behind us, moving a bit more slowly than he normally did.

I turned back to see the monk, my eyes jumping from him to Tashi, who stood at the top of the steps waving goodbye to us.

The fire spirit was planning to do some heavy meditation tonight and Jigme had invited him to stay at the monastery to do so. I got this itching feeling Tashi was going to be the first to finish the one thousand prostrations necessary to move past the novice level.

“I’m a little confused,” Roger told Saruul.

“What about?”

“How long is the Winter Moon festival? And what part are we going to tonight? If someone clarified that earlier, I wasn’t listening.”

“The Winter Moon festival lasts five days. This is the official start of the festival, and there will be more events as the week progresses.”

It was clear she was excited; I imagined Saruul coming to this kickoff event every year since she was a child. It reminded me of how I felt at Christmas, knowing that presents were coming, that I was going into the month happy and would be leaving it even happier.

“The opening night is usually filled with games, food, and dancing,” she explained. “It’s quite the treat. And it’s my favorite night too, because people aren’t too drunk yet. You’ll see what I mean toward the end of the festival. By that point, people have been drunk for so long that things sort of blur together for a lot of the locals,” she said as we came to the gates of the temple.

“Great, drunk lions to look forward to. Do you think any of the birds will be there?” he asked her.

“They usually stay away,” she said, a light bounce in her step.

“Maybe I’ll pay them a visit afterward…”

“I thought you didn’t want to take part in their hot spring orgies,” I reminded him.

“During the day, but at night…” Roger clucked. “We’ll see.”

The streets of Dornod were pretty quiet, most of the people already at the opening ceremony or on their way, their children racing behind them.

I was getting more used to seeing snow lions moving through the streets, but every now and then one would come too close to me, throwing me off guard.

I took this as a reminder to be mindful, more aware of my surroundings.

It had already happened once since leaving the temple, and I could sense my reaction was slightly faster than it had been just three days ago. It was still too early to tell if my training was starting to work, but I definitely noticed it, how quickly I pivoted to the other foot, a young boy charging past me, his tail whipping behind him.

While most of the village was quiet, the pub was still going strong, people out front drinking, a strange, whiny music coming from one of the open windows.

“That’s something we haven’t done yet,” I said, half-joking.

“Is that something you really want to do?” Saruul asked me.

Roger cackled. “I guess it would be easier to get your ass kicked in there than it would be to meet the mysterious man in the middle of the night.”

“Funny,” I told the bird as Lhandon caught up to us.

“I haven’t been out of the temple since we got here,” the portly monk said, taking an excited look around. “I’ve just been so focused! You forget sometimes there is a whole world happening out here. Anyway, we can discuss that part later. No more philosophy for the night. That said, I’ve come to a few decisions that I think you’ll be happy to hear.”

“What’s that?”

“I must humbly admit that it is going to take me a lot longer than I thought it would to restructure the Path of the Divine, so we’ll be leaving sooner than I thought. What I am doing here is a very serious task, not something that should be done in two weeks’ time. I was…” Lhandon and looked to the ground, bowing his head. “Foolish to think that I would just come up here and take care of this so quickly. It was cocky of me.”

“You never said you were going completely take care of it,” I told him, “I figured there would be parts you would have to add later.”

“It was impulsive.”

“Relax, Lhandon, and don’t beat yourself up. To be honest, I thought you were just going to work on the main structure.”

He nodded. “That’s right. The main structures are what are important to me right now. I have an outline for it, and then I will focus on the first two stages and make sure that those are airtight. These are what we will test out as we go to the Island Kingdom. Nick, I’m afraid that there were times where I could have been more helpful in the past, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t better on my feet.”

“What are you referring to?”

“One thing that comes to mind is the fight against Madame Mabel. I could have used one of the prayer beads that Baatar gave me, it could have helped, but I was totally engaged at the time so it didn’t cross my mind. Things like that. I have been thinking a lot about that lately, about past transgressions.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, “and there’s no need to apologize. That was a crazy fight. We did what we could do, and I’m just glad we all got out alive.”

“Aside from me,” Roger said, “but like a zombie…”

Lhandon nodded. “There was another occurrence that I could have helped more, in the fight that you had against the cat men who were transporting those bodies.”

“It’s fine, Lhandon, really. We won in the end.”

He was quiet for a moment as we took a shortcut through a residential area, most of the lights in the homes off. “That occurrence of necromancy is something we will have to look into at some point, especially if we leave the Kingdom of Lhasa. The war between what’s left of Mabel’s forces and Madame Blanche will surely continue, and the dead bodies will stack up. Once we return, we may find ourselves in the middle of a zombie war.”

“Fuck that,” Roger said.

“If that is the case, we will address it then,” I assured Lhandon as we came to the entrance of the festival, sounds and lights coming to us instantly.

I heard a thunk and turned right to see that there was a knife-throwing contest happening, a couple men and women tossing huge daggers into hunks of wood.

There was also a contest in which lion men morphed back and forth between human and animal as they moved along an obstacle course. I stopped and watched this for a moment, amazed at how quickly they moved.

“Come on, this isn’t even the most interesting part,” Saruul said as a man ran toward a tube made of wood, jumped in the air and morphed, and scurried through the tube. He returned to his human form as he exited. The lion man then leaped over a rock, morphed back into a lion to crawl through a narrow passage, rolled out and returned to human form, a crowd of onlookers roaring in approval.

“This looks pretty interesting to me,” I started to say as a few children walked past, eating meat on a stick and laughing. They were followed by teenage girls, two of whom stared at Lhandon and me, exchanged glances, and ran away.

“Let me guess, someone like me hasn’t been to a festival like this in a long time, right?”

“You really are figuring things out around here, aren’t you?” Saruul asked as we weaved our way through a crowd, past a man selling lion puppets and another selling white bird puppets with red beaks.

I looked to the bird puppets and shook my head. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” I told Roger, who was still perched on my shoulder.

He laughed. “You know me too well.”

“What an appealing display of life and happiness,” Lhandon said, taking a deep breath in. “Everyone here is so ecstatic, so happy to be out in public for this festival. I miss things like this.”

“Hey!” a drunk lion shouted, pointing at Lhandon. “Looks like we have dinner here!”

The lion man raised his bone mug of chung into the air, some of it spilling over the side. He threw it back and grabbed for his friend’s beverage, his pal pushing him away. Both of them started to growl at each other, their faces morphing.

“We need to be careful,” Saruul reminded us, her ears folding over slightly, “and we probably shouldn’t stay for more than an hour or so.”

Her timing was impeccable.

The snow lion man known as Champa pushed through a few of his friends and pointed at me. “There he is,” he growled.

My hand instinctively went for the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, only to find that it wasn’t there, that it was back in Saruul’s bedroom where she had suggested I leave it.

One of Champa’s buddies clapped him on the back, another one laughing with his mouth wide open, spit flying out as he asked, “Him?”

A big toothy smile formed on Champa’s face. “That’s the guy…”

“Go ahead and slip me my knife,” Roger whispered to me, “I’ll take care of the village idiot.”

“Let’s not go that far,” I started to tell him as Champa approached us.

“You. Me. Wrestling,” Champa said, the grin on his face shattering into a scowl.

“He’s not going to wrestle you,” Saruul said.

“Why not? It’s not like I’m fighting him or anything, just a simple wrestling match. They’re starting up the tournament right now,” he said, motioning toward an area of the festival that had people seated in stands, their backs to us. I could make out a ring made of stone behind them, lifted into the air by rocks cut to resemble logs.

“That’s not what we’re here to do,” Saruul said. “We’re just here to enjoy the festivities. Why can’t you understand that?”

“It’s fine,” I started to tell her.

“See? He wants to do it,” Champa said, his friends egging him on. They reminded me of frat boys at a keg party, completely in their element as they paid homage to their most primal natures.

“You don’t have to do this…” Saruul started to tell me.

“If it gets this over with, and we can enjoy the rest of the festival without dealing with him, I’ll do it.”

“Please, there is no need for wrestling. Look at all the joy happening around us,” Lhandon said, coming forward.

Champa turned his attention to Lhandon. “Or, I could wrestle the monk…”

“I’ll do it,” I told the big lion man. “Let’s get this over with.”

As I followed Champa and his friends toward the wrestling grounds, Roger started giving me pointers: “Definitely go for an eye gouge. Try to punch him in the nuts as well, although he may be quite small so you’ll really need to get your fist up in there. That always works. Fight dirty, Nick. If he starts to morph, I’ll fly forward with my knife and get him in the eye. Or in the anus, if his back is to me. He won’t like that. If that doesn’t work, have Lhandon here use his icy hands.”

“What is he saying?” Lhandon asked.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“This is so stupid,” Saruul said.

“I agree, but if I don’t do it, who knows how they will escalate their bullshit. What are the wrestling rules here?”

“Rules?”

I stopped, turning to her. “There are rules, right?”

Even though she had a worried look on her face, Saruul couldn’t help but grin at me. “Of course there are rules, we aren’t the cat people of the Forbidden City of Trongsa! It is fairly simple: your goal is to get your opponent off his feet. That’s it. But you can’t throw punches or anything like that, you have to use your own strength to do it. No biting or claws either.”

“Got it.”

“What about kicks?” Roger asked, showing me exactly what he meant. “Aim for his lionsack, Nick.”

“No kicks,” Saruul told Roger. “The point is just to get your opponent off their feet.”

“But he’s like twice his size.”

“He’s not twice my size,” I told Roger, looking at the man’s back and noticing that he was about two heads taller than me. “But he is large.”

“Okay, okay,” the tropical bird said, mulling this over. “How about this? Act like you’ve lost your mind. Maybe start to foam at the mouth, bite at the air, growl, that sort of thing. Give him the crazy eye. You have to scare him, because he definitely has an advantage.”

I nodded as we came around the stands, where we found Champa talking to one of the men in charge of the wrestling matches. The man in charge nodded, allowing us to step through.

There were other wrestlers around us, a few with towels over their heads, their ears giving the towels two additional peaks.

They parted the way for us, mostly ignoring us aside from a pair that couldn’t stop looking from Lhandon to me.

Another match was just about to finish, the two men locked, barely able to control themselves as their heads morphed.

Their bodies were hunched forward, both wrestlers keeping their footing on a polished stretch of solid blue stone. The first man, who was even larger than Champa, eventually got the upper hand. He finally managed to drag his opponent to the ground, with a smack! that definitely could be heard over the crowd.

The lion man lifted both fists in the air and roared, the people in the stands screaming for him as he and his opponent left the ring.

Once he was given the signal, Champa stepped onto the blue stone and lifted both hands in the air, only a few people in the crowd clapping for him.

“So he’s not very popular, eh? Who could have seen that coming?” Roger asked as he transferred from my shoulder to Lhandon’s shoulder.

“Please, Nick, be careful,” the monk said, trying to contain his worry. “You don’t want him to injure you.”

“I don’t plan to get injured; my hope is just to get this over with.”

“You need to stay grounded,” Saruul said, and I could tell that she wanted to come into my arms, to place her hand on my cheek, but she knew better than to display this type of affection in our current environment.

Instead, she simply patted me on the shoulder. “Stay grounded, Nick.”

“This won’t be long.” I stepped onto the slab of blue stone. It wasn’t going to give much grip, and I was certain it would hurt like hell getting slammed down onto it.

“Are you ready for this?” Champa asked, flexing the muscles on his arms and shoulders.

“Sure.”

He came forward, his hands slamming onto my shoulder. We grappled for a moment, Champa using his weight and size to push me backward.

We locked arms again and I focused my weight into my legs, my thighs screaming as I tried to push him away, as I tried to pull into the ground.

It wasn’t in my best interest to win this fight, I knew that, but I also didn’t want to give in so easily. I wanted him to know not to mess with me.

He tried to slam his shoulder into me, but I managed to dodge his attack, going behind him and grabbing Champa by the waist. I even managed to lift him briefly before he brought his arm around, holding me in a headlock.

It would have been the perfect position for a suplex, but then we would both be on the ground, so I merely pushed him forward, slipping out of his grip

As we locked arms yet again, I noticed a musky scent to him, and his breath reeked of alcohol.

Champa started to overpower me.

My thighs still straining, I pushed back, Champa’s face morphing and returning to his human form.

I managed to slip out of his grip, delivering a shoulder to his side that almost caused him to trip over his own feet. He caught his balance and lunged for me again, rage in his eyes.

We locked arms, and Champa quickly slipped his head under my arm, lifting me off the ground. The only way I would be able to get out of his grip was to drop my arms onto his shoulder and bear down.

And as I started to do so, time came to a standstill.

With a deep breath in, I slipped out of his grip, Champa still frozen, the crowd motionless all around us.

I looked to Saruul and registered the concern in her eyes.

I needed to finish this now.

Rather than use my ability to my advantage, I laid down before Champa, and rolled to my side, curling my knees to my chest, waiting for time to speed up.

He stumbled forward, the big man shocked at first, then overcome with joy that he had somehow won. He raised both fists into the air, and then dropped his hands to his knees, roaring in my face.

I looked over to see Saruul nodding, the beautiful lioness intuiting what I had just done.

Champa’s friends came forward, congratulating him, and as they did so I quietly moved away, rejoining Saruul, Lhandon, and Roger.

“For a moment there I thought you were going to win,” Roger said. “Glad I didn’t place any bets.”

“For a moment, I was going to win.”

“What you did was the right thing,” Lhandon told me. “There’s no need to rile up these people, and who knows how that guy would have acted if he became the first lion to ever be beaten by a human in a wrestling match.”

“So you knew as well?” I asked him.

I felt something brush against my right side; I turned to see that Saruul was going for my hand, that she wanted to hold it.

And even though a few people stared us in surprise, I took her hand, proud to have pleased her.

“Yes,” Lhandon told me. “It was pretty clear. One moment he was starting to lift you, the next moment you were about to come down on him, and then you were just lying on the ground. Anyone watching closely would have noticed that something had happened. But it’s better this way. What you did was very humble, Nick. Sometimes it’s good not to let others know our strengths.”

Chapter Fourteen: Angelic Revelations

Saruul fastened the blindfold over my eyes and led me outside.

A bitter cold met my bones as I continued walking, focusing on imaginary fire in my gut. The beautiful lioness stopped me. She placed a hand on my lower back as she kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck tonight.”

And just a few seconds later, I was alone again, surrounded by darkness and ready for anything.

Rather than focus on how cold I felt, or the fire I was trying to mentally keep alive, I listened for any sounds that would indicate my opponent was approaching.

A grunt reached my ears and I knew he had arrived.

I took my blindfold off, bringing my fists to the ready.

The lion man wasn’t in front of me.

Pivoting, I narrowly avoided his first attack, the man coming from behind with a wicked chop.

He lunged for me again.

This time I blocked his chop by crossing my arms in front of my body, following up with a quick jab to his side that sent the man to the ground, kicking up dust.

I could feel that my Fist of Force power was activated, not only evident in the energy radiating around my knuckles, but also in the way the lion man was acting as he slowly got back to his feet.

While he was masked, I could tell that the man was wincing, that my hit had definitely done some damage.

Seeing this as an opportunity, I advanced on him, hoping to deliver another blow that would end this match quickly, before his technical skill overcame my sheer power.

He jumped just in time, the bottom of his knee connecting with my chin and sending me in an arc straight to my back.

My legs rolled over my head and I used this to roll back to my feet.

“Come on,” I said, suddenly envisioning the man as Champa. “Come on…”

I could have won that match, and while it was politically smarter for me to lose, it still bothered the hell out of me. I was glad that Champa had left us alone after our little wrestling match, but I had a feeling he would be around again at some point.

The masked man came forward, morphing into a lion.

I stumbled backward and tripped over the extended leg of another lion man. The second lion man wore armor and was thinner than his counterpart. He tackled me, clamping his legs around my waist as he started delivering blows to my face.

I managed to buck him off, only to be tackled by the first lion, the beast tearing his claws down my back, the pain causing me to cry out.

I managed to turn and bring my fist forward, the lion clamping down onto it with his jaw, shaking his head as his teeth dug into the flesh of my knuckles.

Everything flashed red.

But as it did so I managed to bring my other hand back and connect with the side of the lion’s face with a chop, sending the creature to the side just as the other man came toward me again.

The second lion man kicked me so hard in the chin that I saw fireworks, everything going black.

I barely remembered hitting the ground, only that it was a moment later that I blinked my eyes open to see both men standing there, ready to engage.

“Fuck it,” I said as I pressed myself back to my feet, my hand all but useless, blood strewn across my white robes. I felt the sting on my back as I stood, my lungs barely able to fill, my vision blurring again.

Both men came forward and as they did, time stopped.

I took a step forward and fell to my knee.

I picked myself back up and continued toward my frozen opponents.

Bringing my hand back, I sunk my fist into the masked face of the man on my left, my original lion opponent. My momentum sent me stumbling forward, time kicking back into its normal pace as soon as I hit the ground, pain radiating through me.

I tried to crawl away from them.

But once they started delivering kick after kick, I knew it was over.

I still tried to protect myself, and I even thought of tracing up the rune that allowed me to absorb blows, but I could barely get my good hand up, and the other one was a bloodied mess after being caught the mouth of a lion.

A final punch to the back of my head put me down for the count.

Everything swirled around me, the stars overhead whirling dervishes.

I awoke with a gasp to find Dohna standing over me.

“Don’t heal yourself,” she told me.

“W-w-what?” I asked her.

“Tonight is the night that you experience the pain. Tomorrow is the day I show you how to beat your opponents. Now come.”

She started to walk away and stopped, waiting for me to catch up to her.

I reached my hand out to her, my arm slapping against the ground.

Dohna returned to my side. “You have to do this on your own, Nick, I can’t help you. Make your way to my home.” She took a few steps away from me. “You can do it.”

I slowly rolled over, cringing in pain as I tried to pull myself forward using my elbows. My left leg was numb now, blood trickling out of my mouth, my right eye so puffy that I couldn’t see out of it.

A walk that would have taken five minutes tops turned into a thirty-minute crawl, my white robes filthy by the time I reached her home.

The pain seriously affected my sleep.

I would wake up panting, only to find that I was lying on the warm floor of the living room, not able to make it all the way up the stairs, right where Dohna had left me.

My blood had partially dried on the floor, creating almost a halo around my face as I switched to the other cheek.

All I had to do was trace up Healing Hand, but I resisted, prepared to endure Dohna’s training even if it broke me.

My breaths felt shallow, and my eye was so puffy now that it only let in a little bit of light.

“Nick?”

It wasn’t Saruul’s voice, nor was it the voice of her mother.

I turned to my side, letting out a gasp as my eyes fell upon Dema.

My dakini stood there with a worried look on her face, an aura of light illuminating her form.

I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or not; my good hand was under my body, tingling and numb, my other hand was so mangled that I knew I wouldn’t be able to pinch myself.

“I’m… hurt…”

“I can tell.”

At points, Dema seemed inches away, but it also felt like she was standing on the other side of the room.

It was truly maddening.

I tried to sit up but eventually gave in, my cheek falling to the floor as I stared over at her. “I… I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Nick. You aren’t supposed to heal yourself, correct?”

I nodded, and in doing so I started to cough, blood trickling down my lips. “Sorry.”

“You will make it through the night,” she assured me. “Just focus on your breath.”

Dema slowly lowered to the ground so that she now sat on her knees. She wore light gray as usual, her white hair braided at both sides of her head and pulled back into a bun.

“Why…” I sucked in a deep breath, willing myself to speak clearly. Knowing that this moment would be important. “Why do you have to come now?”

“You have been calling for me…”

“Why now? Now… I can barely speak.”

“Yet you continue to communicate. Nick, if you haven’t noticed already, I generally am only able to present myself to you when you are in distress. It is the easiest way for me to break through. While I am always watching over you, the confines of my own reality, and the constraints of yours here on the Plane of Existence, make it difficult for me to make myself visible. Perhaps one day I will be stronger, and I’ll be able to visit you more often.”

“So… you come when I’m hurt?”

“Oftentimes, yes, because it is a joint effort for me to come here. Most importantly, you have to be in the right mindset. This is crucial for me to visit, and it is only when you’re in the mindset that you are in right now, beaten down and barely alive, that your understanding of reality is muddled enough that you can actually see me. Please understand, I am always here.”

She smiled at me, and as she did, her elven ears tilted back ever so slightly.

“I have questions…”

“I’m sure you do. What would you like to know?”

“So any one of us could be the Golden One, right? Not just me.”

“Coming through the portal from your world to ours is what triggers the potential for you to become a Golden One. You are all Golden Ones. It is up to each of you individually to truly take the title and make something of it. I don’t believe anyone has mentioned this to you yet, but maybe you have put the pieces of this puzzle together.”

“Which puzzle?” I asked her, my vision turning fuzzy again and then solidifying.

“You have learned a lot recently, including that there were five Immortals. Thupten the Corrupted established the Kingdom of Lhasa; Misake the Whisperer established the Kingdom of Rinpunga; Ganbold the Strong established the Island Kingdom of Jonang; Padme Lung the Virtuous established the Kingdom of Paro; and Kenzo the Written established the Island Kingdom of Tsirang.”

“Yes, I’ve heard those names several times now.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that the Way of the Immortals was simply the name for the five paths that these five Immortals created?”

“No, no one has mentioned that yet,” I said, feeling foolish for not putting these pieces together earlier. Five Immortals, five paths.

It made total sense.

“It is in the Book of the Immortals, and I’m sure that Lhandon has read it and that he knew it previously. This bit of information isn’t pertinent to what he has currently tasked himself with. Each of the Immortals had their different way, and some of the paths are more obscure than others. Another thing to take into consideration is this: just because one of the Immortals established a kingdom, this doesn’t mean that their path is the one that is currently practiced there.”

She brought her hands down to her knees, her smile warming me some.

“Take the Kingdom of Lhasa, for example. The Path of the Divine and the Path of Possession are what are mostly practiced here in Lhasa. The Path of the Divine was initially created by Padme Lung the Virtuous, and the Path of Possession was created by Ganbold the Strong. While the Kingdom of Lhasa was founded by Thupten, a different Immortal, Padme’s path has also crept in and taken hold of the population. I believe that will continue to spread, especially after Lhandon has finished his restructuring.”

“So each Immortal had their own path…” I said, ignoring a throbbing pain spreading from my rib cage down to my groin.

“Yes, Kenzo the Written created the Path of Cultivation, which focuses mostly on moving energy. It isn’t very popular here, but there are other places where it is practiced. It is quite subtle, beautiful, just like the script he devised. Misake the Whisperer created the Path of Sudden Enlightenment, which borrowed heavily from her ability to whisper things into existence. Of all the paths, this one is the most unknown because the information has been lost. Thupten the Corrupted is responsible for the Path of Divine Madness which, contrary to widespread belief, does not have to be started once you have reached a certain level on one of the other paths. It is a path truly made for those who have a corrupted sense of morality, but sometimes, it can lead to greater awakenings. As I mentioned previously, Ganbold the Strong is responsible for the Path of Possession, which is what Sona and those around her practice, including Evan, the man who came through the portal at the same time you did. How do you think he became such a good shot with his crossbow? Does your world even use those weapons?”

“Some people use them to hunt, but I see your point.”

“The Path of the Divine has the potential to fulfill most people’s expectations of the Way the Immortals, and lead to better rebirths. That’s not to say some of the other paths aren’t good, most notably the Path of Cultivation and the Path of Sudden Enlightenment, but the Path of the Divine is the middle road, which gives it the potential to do the most good.”

“I have another question…”

“Yes?”

“Did any of the Immortals ever go back to my world? Were they trapped here forever?”

“I don’t think that you will like the answer to that question,” she said softly.

“I figured as much.”

“But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a way, it just may take more sacrifice than you are willing to make.”

“Okay,” I said, my vision started to blur again. “No,” I told myself, trying to keep my energy levels up. I focused on my breath, doing everything I could to stop myself from passing back out. “Is someone from the Underworld trying to get me?” I asked Dema once the ability to speak came to me again.

“I believe so, yes. The forces trying to get you are not from the Overworld, and that is the only other place they can be from. I can say that it was forces from the Overworld that brought you and your friends here. But that is all I can say for now. And you should also know that while I am in support of you, Nick, there are other dakinis in support of your friends.”

“Tom is alive?” I asked, feeling my heart flutter.

“If he is alive, there is someone supporting him. We aren’t given much power to intervene, and I may have stepped outside the boundaries given to me already, but I am a firm believer that what you are doing has the best potential for everyone in this world. But you must understand that there are other Golden Ones, the people you came with, and any of them could easily overtake you, including Evan, which would wreak havoc on this world.”

“So it’s a competition between my friends and me?”

“Not necessarily a competition, but once your friends better understand what is happening, if they are ever coherent enough,” she said, clearly referring to Bobby, “it could become that way. This is just something to keep in mind.”

She offered me a fond smile, a twinkle behind her eyes.

“It is time that I go, Nick, but before I do, I want to teach you a new rune that may help you. It is called Bah-Mo. As you might have already noticed, I’m rarely able to interact with things that aren’t from my world or the Underworld. I am able to interact with you, but that is because I am your dakini.”

“Okay,” I told her, trying to understand what she was getting at.

“Because of this, I’m going to have to burn the rune into your skin. You will be able to heal up tomorrow, but before you do, please copy this rune down and practice.”

Rather than stand, Dema floated up, still in a seated position. She moved closer to me and lowered back to the stone floor.

“This will hurt, but it should help you going forward,” she said, her fingertip starting to burn white with light. “Good luck, Nick.”

Chapter Fifteen: Fight like a Snow Lion

I blinked my eyes open to find Saruul crouched before me, her ears alert.

“Hey…” I told her as I tried to roll to my side, failing miserably. It felt like every bone in my body had been broken, the pain excruciating.

“What happened to you?” she asked as she stared down at my arm.

“Ass kicked…” I told her.

“No, this rune.”

Saruul’s mother came from the kitchen to see what her daughter was talking about. I could tell that Saruul was upset with her mother, but at the same time, the look on her face indicated that she knew that this was par for the course, just another component of the training.

“Did one of your combatants leave this on you?” Dohna asked carefully. Rather than crouching next to her daughter she simply placed her hand on her daughter’s head, Saruul looking up at her.

“Can he heal himself yet?” she asked, her throat quivering.

“No, not yet…” I told the two.

“Sure, heal yourself, Nick,” Dohna said.

“No, not yet,” I told them again as I started to move my head, glancing down at the rune Dema had burned into my arm. “Help me up.”

Saruul came to my side and gently guided me to a seated position with my back against the wall, the lioness trying not to show concern on her face when she took in just how dirty and cut up I was.

Now that I was in a better position, I was able to actually see the rune that Dema had branded me with.

I recognized the character for ‘Mo,’ which sort of looked like a stick figure of a contortionist bending to the side with their legs spread wide, holding up a tray over their head.

Above the character was what I assumed was ‘Bah,’ which was simply a straight line with a circle above it.

“Nick, you need to heal up,” Saruul said, bringing my arm in front of my face so I could see my good hand, which was still numb because of sleeping on it.

I nodded, and after mobility returned to my fingers, I moved my hand away from her, back down to my side. I ran my finger along the stone floor until I came to my own blood. I looked for a clean spot, and after confirming what the rune looked like, I traced it on the floor using my own blood as ink.

From there I cast Healing Hand, and as soon as I did I felt movement inside my body.

I looked at my mangled fist to see the wound stitch back up, dexterity returning to my fingers. As I continued to heal myself, I noticed my bones crack back together and my organs repair themselves, which gave me a nauseated feeling. The last thing to go was the rune that had been burnt into my flesh.

It faded slowly until it was gone.

“I have to remember this rune,” I told them. “My dakini came to me last night and taught it to me.”

“Your dakini came here?” Dohna asked, bringing her hand to her mouth.

I nodded. “It’s easier for her to come when I’m in distress. But I think you would know that, somehow…”

Saruul’s mother shook her head. “No, I merely wanted you to experience the pain of injury, which is part of the training I have devised for you. I had no intention of invoking your guardian spirit…”

“It’s fine,” I told her, waving her concern away. “I’ve been wanting to meet Dema for some time now. I need to see what this rune does.”

“Not in the house, you don’t.”  Dohna motioned toward the back door.

“You should change your clothing,” Saruul said, her tone echoing her mother’s. “You’re practically wearing rags at this point.”

“Let me just see what it does first.” I pressed myself off the ground, ignoring the splotchy puddle of blood I’d left on the floor.

I took one more look at the rune, Bah-Mo, and made my way toward the back door, Saruul and her mother joining me.

“Where’s Roger?” I asked, wondering why I hadn’t seen the bird yet.

“I think he slipped out at some point in the night to go visit the other birds,” Saruul said with a giggle.

“That sly little bastard,” I said as I traced up the rune.

I started with a circle on top, followed by two straight lines and then the curl and the legs of the character Mo. As soon as I was finished, a spark of energy erupted from my fingertips, forming a semi-translucent…

“Monkey?” I asked as the three-foot creature finished taking shape.

The monkey wore what I would equate to samurai armor with layered shoulder pads, a vest made out of a ribbed material with a horizontal cut, a belt, and a skirt made of the same materials as the vest, the ends of the skirt adorned with sharp spikes.

The monkey had a pair of scimitars.

“Oh my…” Dohna started to say.

The monkey stood there with a serious look on his face. He didn’t brandish his weapons, nor did he make any sudden movements.

“Can you speak?” I asked the monkey.

He glanced at me and shook his head.

“Okay…”

We waited in silence to see what the monkey would do. Eventually, after about two minutes, the warrior monkey started to fade away.

“Fascinating,” Dohna finally said. “Your guardian spirit has given you a fighter, something to cast that will help you in a battle.”

“Are you sure?”

“I believe so. But it would be best to speak to Jigme about this when you see him later today. Perhaps he will know more.”

While Saruul’s mother prepared breakfast, Saruul led me upstairs to the washroom, where she told me to strip down.

I did as instructed, and it wasn’t long before she brought up two pails of hot water. She put them in a tub made of stone which was already slightly warm, curiously enough, and told me to get in, slapping me on the ass with her tail as I moved past her.

“I want you to be clean for tonight,” she said in a way that told me that she had some plans for later in the evening.

Saruul brought four more pails of water, enough to fill the tub, and then she went about cleaning me, occasionally flirting with me by keeping her hand below the water longer than I expected.

We hadn’t had sex since I’d come to Dornod, which was something I could definitely sense now that we were alone. The fact that my training was at night really was messing with the time that we had to be intimate with one another.

But as she bathed me, and then eventually kissed me, she announced her plan to do something about this.

And soon.

Damn, I loved how forthright the lion women were.

After a breakfast of porridge and bacon, along with a juice made from boiled mountain berries that had a tangy after-spice to it, Dohna asked me to join her outside.

“I can help,” I started to tell Saruul, who had been instructed to clean up the bloodied mess I’d left on the living room floor.

“It’s fine,” Dohna told me. “It won’t take her very long, and you and I have a limited amount of time together, considering you need to get to the monastery.”

“I’m sorry,” I told Saruul anyway.

“It’s fine, Nick.”

I followed Dohna outside, recalling that she had said something last night about doing something different today.

Maybe I was imagining it; it had all been such a blur that it was hard to tell.

Once we reached the spot where we had normally trained, clouds in the distance making it look like we are floating above the world, Dohna brought her fists up. “It is time that I teach you how to fight like a snow lion,” she said.

Chapter Sixteen: Plans of Departure

Jigme and Lhandon sat in their raised positions, a small bag of rice before each of them. Tashi approached, the fire spirit standing about a foot tall, careful not to ignite anything. He had his hands behind his back, head slightly dipped, blue plumes lifting off his shoulders.

“How many prostrations has he performed?” Lhandon asked the rice, and as the words left his lips, the rice began to rearrange itself into a number that I didn’t recognize. “Great,” Lhandon told the fire spirit. “There are more steps, of course, before you move to the cultivator stage, including the full meditation on karma and compassion, but at least you have performed the physical aspect, joining Altan in leading the task.”

“It is my pleasure, Exalted One.” Tashi bowed to Lhandon again and floated away.

“Are you okay, Nick?” Lhandon asked me.

I was definitely sore; Dohna had put me through quite a bit, and she never seemed to let up. Saruul’s mother was a fierce combatant, and while she never did anything too rough, she definitely knew key places to land blows.

To make matters worse, my healing power would not be reset until midnight, meaning I’d have to suffer through the pain for the rest of the day and then some, considering that I would still need to meet my mysterious opponent later on.

I only hoped the masked lion man showed up alone.

Roger was perched on the table, the tropical bird in his fur vest, a few of his feathers missing. He’d apparently had a hell of a night last night, and refused to talk about it. Saruul was beside me as well, a soft smile on her face as she glanced between Lhandon and me.

“I’m fine,” I finally said. “I’m learning how to fight like a lion.”

Jigme chuckled. “I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone,” he said, Saruul and the young lion monk at the back of the room laughing too.

“What can I say? It has been an interesting last couple days,” I said, “and that was before my dakini visited me last night.”

“She visited you?” Lhandon asked, a curious look coming across his face.

“Yes, and she told me a number of things, including that the people I came here with all have dakinis.”

Lhandon ran his hand over his shaved head. “I hadn’t considered that.”

Altan entered the room and sat to Lhandon’s left, a fresh stack of parchment in his hands. His quill and ink were set up on a small table in front of him, ready to go.

“It makes sense,” Jigme said, the lion man biting his bottom lip. “Why would Nick be the only one with a dakini? They all must have a power as well, which I’m sure you already discussed.”

I nodded. “Even though I was a bloodied mess from my training, our conversation was enlightening. She explained that there are five paths of the Way of the Immortals because there are five Immortals, something that I’d never considered earlier.”

“Yes, and this is also a detail that I plan to have at the beginning of the new edition of the Path of the Divine,” Lhandon said. “Even though it is going to ruffle some feathers—no offense, Roger—I think it is important for people to understand the context of the Path of the Divine within the Way of the Immortals, and the other paths available, and just as importantly, where these paths come from.”

“It definitely will aid in wider understanding, and will also show people the options they have within the Way of the Immortals,” Altan added. “It makes sense that Kenzo the Written created the Path of Cultivation with its energy movement; that Misake the Whisperer created the Path of Sudden Enlightenment considering she could speak words into existence; Thupten the Corrupted created the Path of Divine Madness, which is fueled by iniquity; that Ganbold the Strong created the Path of Possession, with the fact that he was a warlord; and that Padme Lung the Virtuous created our path, the Path of the Divine.”

“Okay, I’m going to be honest there,” Roger said, throwing his wings up. “That is all news to me. I was unaware that the Immortals actually created the paths. As simple as that sounds, no one ever told me. How come no one ever mentioned this?”

“You never asked,” Saruul said.

“No, this is a failure in transmission. So tell Lhandon that I agree with him, that this information needs to be in the book, so more people can understand, and that he has failed me as a monk by not already telling me this information.”

“Roger agrees with you,” I translated to Lhandon, leaving the last bit out.

“That’s not what I said!”

“He agrees whole-heartedly with you,” I told Lhandon, smirking at Roger.

“I’m glad to hear that. So is that all your dakini told you?”

“She confirmed our suspicion that the person that brought me and my friends here is from the Overworld, and the person that is trying to stop us, possibly the man that attacked us, is from the Underworld. Dema also explained why she can’t come to me as often as she would like. Apparently, it’s easiest for her to appear when I’m in distress, when my grip on reality isn’t as tight as it would normally would be.”

“That does make sense, but I hope it doesn’t mean that you have to injure yourself to get her to come again.”

“We will see. It’s pretty easy for me to get injured here,” I said, smirking at Saruul. “One could say that it’s something that could happen right after breakfast. Every morning.”

“You were the one that wanted training,” she reminded me.

“True, true. One final thing,” I said, returning my attention to Lhandon and Jigme, “and this is something that I would like for us to look into sometime today. She taught me a rune.”

“She taught you a rune?” Jigme asked.

I nodded. “That’s right, one called Bah-Mo.”

“Bah-Mo,” Jigme said, quickly jotting down notes. “Never heard of it. Have you tested it out yet?”

“We did. It created a monkey.”

“A monkey?” Lhandon asked.

“Yeah, a semi-translucent one.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Roger said.

“He also had two curved swords,” Saruul added. “But he didn’t engage us. He simply stood there until he faded away.”

“So, she gave you an avatar?” Jigme asked, his ears flickering, the monk unable to control the surprised look on his face.

“I don’t know what it is yet, but I figured you would be able to help me find out.”

“This is fascinating,” Jigme said, “truly fascinating. And sure, we can look into it after we finish up today’s discussion.”

“Yes, I believe it is important to look into,” Lhandon said with a firm nod. “Now, regarding today’s discussion, I’m going to lay out the other stages on the Path of the Divine, and explain their requirements. Even though this is going to be explored in greater detail in the actual book, I think it’s important to set our parameters now. What I’m looking for here is any added input or ideas on the stage requirements. After we go over this, we will break for an afternoon meal, and then continue our series on cultivation and karma. Following that, I believe it is important for us to see what we can discover about this new rune that you have learned.” Lhandon looked to his notes, glancing back up at us once another thought came to him. “One more thing: we’re leaving in four days.”

“You are leaving on the last day of the Winter Moon festival?” Saruul asked, immediately trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Lhandon said, “Jigme and I have discussed this over tea this morning, and we feel that it is important to not only begin the search for your friend, Nick, but the Exonerated One’s reincarnation. This will also give us time for what we have conceptualized here to simmer a bit, for us to think of other ways that we could address the various stages that would be most beneficial to the general public, and to those seeking a more religious path by becoming a nun or a monk. Altan will stay here in Dornod while you, Roger, Tashi, and I will journey to the Island Kingdom of Jonang.”

I looked to Saruul and she glanced away. I knew at that moment that she probably wouldn’t be coming with us, but rather than be disappointed about it, I decided to look at it a different way, that coming back here would give me something to look forward to, a reason to live.

“What about Bobby?” I asked.

“He will rest here at the Temple of Eternal Sky until he is better,” Jigme said. “In the meantime, Altan and I will continue to look after him.”

Altan nodded at me. “He’s breathing more easily now. Hopefully he wakes before you set off. It will be an arduous journey, and it may be many months before you return. I believe he’ll be able to recover in that time.”

“Good, and I hope so.”

“As previously discussed, we will have to leave by way of Sarpang, which means we will need to cross the Great Plateau,” Lhandon explained. “There is little food and water out there, so we will want to prepare accordingly.”

“Is it cold there?” I asked.

“Not so much during the day,” Jigme answered, “but it will be bitterly cold at night. You will have to pack smartly, but having a fire spirit and a bird with you should offer some help.”

“See?” Roger asked me. “I can be useful.”

“No one claimed you weren’t useful,” I told the bird.

“When we return to the Kingdom of Lhasa, we can try to make our way back to Dornod through Cultivation Hills, but that does put us closer to Bamda where war may break out. The problem lies in the fact that Mabel’s forces are in Nagchu, which is on the southwestern side of the continent; Darwina lives in Mongar, which is due west; and Madame Blanche lives north of her.”

“They are sort of all sandwiched together, aren’t they?” Roger asked.

“Sounds like it,” I said.

Lhandon continued: “Darwina and Mabel had joined forces against Madame Blanche, but now that Mabel is dead, there is no telling where they stand. I can’t speak to the relation they had before, but Madame Darwina may see an opportunity in taking Nagchu, which will lead to more conflict. We shall see. We will have more enemies on the western side of the continent then we do the east, but coming through from the east to return to Dornod can be treacherous, as the east is a mostly unexplored region aside from the Forbidden City of Trongsa, where the cat people hail from.”

“Considering the enemies you have on the western coast, it may be better to go to the east,” Jigme said, “but you are correct, it won’t be easy. I do have a map that you can borrow which may help you navigate the east, if you decide to come through there, and if you can make it to Trongsa, you will be able to hire a guide to bring you here, at least halfway up the mountain, where you could call one of us.”

“We will continue to solidify our plans over the next four days,” Lhandon said. “For now, we should begin discussing the points in the other stages. For one, all the stages, until one gets to the divine master, or Spineless Book stage, will all have a component of physical exercise through prostrations. The most difficult one will be the stage designed for hermits, the master stage, or Hollow Peacock. The number of prostrations Jigme and I have settled on for this stage is one hundred thousand.”

Roger whistled, eliciting a chuckle from Saruul.

“I guess we all know who’s not becoming a hermit,” Tashi said in a rare display of humor.

“You guessed right,” Roger told the fire spirit, “I’m going to make it to the cultivator stage, and that’s it. I don’t want to be an advanced student, I don’t want to be a teacher, I don’t want to be a hermit, and I don’t want to be both a teacher and a hermit. I just want to be a happy bird on the path to becoming a human next go around. Where’s the harm in that?”

Tashi nodded his head in agreement. “You make a fine point, Roger.”

Chapter Seventeen: Visualization

It had been a good day.

Even as I stood on the cold stone with my blindfold on, awaiting my nightly training, I couldn’t help but smile.

After the meditation, Jigme had found a book on legendary avatars in the temple’s library explaining exactly what casting Bah-Mo actually did, which was along the lines of what I expected, but more so.

Bah-Mo would definitely come in handy in the future...

This was followed by a long stretch of alone time with Saruul, the house curiously empty as Dohna left to prepare for some of tomorrow’s festivities, and Roger went off to hang with the birds.

It was worth the wait, and as I stood in anticipation of my opponent’s inevitable arrival, I couldn’t help but recall how wonderful our intimate moment had been, Saruul much more gentle this time, taking things slowly, the extent of how much she missed me evident in her movements.

With a deep breath in I swallowed this thought, knowing that being distracted at a time like this usually resulted in a kick to the chin.

I was rewarded for my mindfulness when I heard a grunt, my natural reaction being to remove my blindfold.

Sure enough, I found two masked lion men, one larger than the other.

“Here we go,” I whispered under my breath as I brought my fists up, remembering some of the things that Dohna had taught me.

She wanted me to focus on being lighter on my feet, and I was starting to feel it now.

Even though I should have been tense, my knees were a little bouncy, my hips gyrating in a small circle.

Dohna had also instructed me on a few of the better pressure points to target on someone, rather than going straight for someone’s face.

With my Fist of Force power, I was able to easily shatter bone, and hitting someone at a certain point would double the power of my strike.

The only thing was, thinking about it too much would lead to me not defending myself accordingly, which was exactly what happened as the smaller lion man came forward, feigned a punch, and swept me off my feet instead.

My back hit the ground, but rather than roll over to the side, I brought my legs back and flipped back up to my feet, blocking the lion’s next strike. I delivered a fist to the small lion’s gut, the man letting out a grunt and falling to the ground.

The other lion man leaped over him, morphing in midair and tackling me.

He started to maul me, his claws cutting into my chest and shoulders, the sting eliciting a scream from my lips.

Even if I had experienced this type of tactic a few times now, it still threw me into a panic, my body naturally trying to defend my face.

I got control of myself, twisting my spine to the right just as a lion came down to snap at my face.

I wrestled him off and managed to bring my knee into the lion’s side and sink my fist into his shoulder.

The lion let out a bellow just as his smaller counterpart slammed into me, our two bodies smacking the ground again.

Go for the kill.

I recalled Dohna saying this to me at some point, and that was exactly what I did with the smaller lion, moving on top of him and dropping my elbow into his throat.

He shook, and then his head rolled to the side.

But rather than check that he was dead, I stumbled back to my feet, my fists coming up as I looked to the other masked lion who had now morphed back into a man.

He glanced to his counterpart and back up to me, his shoulders lifting some, his shadow looming toward me as he began to approach, menace in his form.

“Got something to say?” I asked him as I again returned to what Dohna had taught me about being light on my feet, my hips gyrating ever so slightly.

A wind came in from the distance, howling as it moved past, both of us stopping and waiting for the sound to subside.

Hearing the wind reminded me to focus on my breath, and I did so, taking in deep inhales, hoping that my time modifying ability would present itself sooner than later.

The lion man dove and I stepped to my left just in time.

He rolled back to his feet and came around with a massive kick that I blocked with my elbow.

I pivoted, delivering a fist straight into his kidney, the man roaring with displeasure.

He bent to the side and grabbed my head, his hands coming around my neck. The man lifted me by the skull, his fingers pressing into my throat as he swung me over his shoulder and onto my back.

Everything went black.

By the time I woke up they were gone, Dohna crouched before me. “Can you walk?”

“I think so,” I said, but as I pressed off the ground, I noticed a pain in my back that I hadn’t felt before.

I settled in again on the cold stone.

Much to my surprise, Roger landed next to me.

“Damn, Nick, you really are having your ass handed to you out here, aren’t you?” he asked, a shocked look on his face.

“It’s part of the training,” I told him, noticing that each of my inhalations felt like someone was slipping a blade in the space between my ribs. “Can I heal myself yet?”

“She’s not letting you heal yourself?” Roger asked, shaking his head at Dohna. “Is this really necessary?”

“Do you know how to train someone to be a fighter?” she asked him.

“No, but I know how to use a knife, and if you would let me fight with Nick here, I guarantee you someone would get stabbed.”

“Is that right?” I asked, smirking, noticing that the movement on my face caused the rest of my body to ache as well.

“Look, I’m sure this training is useful and all, but we are about to embark on a journey to a new kingdom. And you have to remember that you will have support, at least through me and Tashi. Lhandon, not so much. Although he does have that ice hand ability, great for hot beverages.”

“Thanks,” I told Roger.

The bird continued, hopping alongside me as he spoke. “Unfortunately, to use his ice hand power, he would have to get in close. And I don’t see that happening. So what I’m trying to say here is that you’re going to have backup, but your backup will be in the form of a bird, and a fire spirit. Which, to be honest, could be worse.”

“Can I… heal?” I asked, looking at Dohna and noticing the taste of blood at the back of my mouth.

“Come on,” Roger said, jumping in. “We only have a few days left here, let the man sleep peacefully. Besides, he was already visited by his dakini last night. Who knows if she’ll try to make another appearance.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Saruul’s mother asked Roger.

“Not necessarily, but I think one visit every fortnight is probably good enough. Just a bird’s opinion.”

“Fine, heal,” Dohna said. “And be ready to train with a sword tomorrow.”

I brought my hand up and traced up the rune that gave me the Healing Hand ability.

I instantly started to feel better, especially after I placed my hand against my chest, moving it down my waist to my abdomen. It was crazy to feel just how wet the front of my body was from blood, my white robes in tatters yet again.

“Are you planning for me to use my sword for the morning training or the evening training?” I asked Dohna.

“Evening,” she said. “And you won’t be using your sword, we don’t need any fires out here. You’ll be using a wooden sword. I suppose I should have clarified that. But your opponent will be using a real sword, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Heh. That seems like a fair fight,” Roger said under his breath.

“I’m used to it,” I told him once I was able to stand. I stretched my arms over my head, noticing that the pain in my back was now gone. “Anyone else need any healing before my power goes away?”

“Actually…” Roger bowed his head a bit as he shuffled forward. “I could use a little.”

“What happened to you?” I asked him.

He shook his head with shame. “The white birds are into some weird shit, just as I suspected. I should have known better than to hang out with them. Someone should have warned me,” Roger mumbled, glaring up at Dohna. “Let’s just say I won’t be visiting them anytime soon, and it’ll be only by the grace of your healing hands that I won’t be limping tomorrow.”

The next day blazed by, filled with training, teaching and prostrations.

I woke up feeling fairly well-rested, and after a few intimate moments with Saruul, I had breakfast and immediately started my calisthenics, led by Dohna.

From there it was straight to the temple, where Lhandon lectured more about his plans for the various stages of the Path of the Divine.

All of the stages had a similar initiation ritual through being blessed by a holy object, and as a student progressed, they learned things like runes and more advanced meditations. At the advanced student stage, or Ink in the Sea, which was only available to monks, the initiate was required to hand scribe the Book of the Immortals; they would also prepare a teaching or get ready for a meditation retreat, depending on which stage they wanted to go to next.

It made sense.

The first two stages, the novice and cultivator stages, were for everyone. The advanced student stage would then prepare a monk or nun to become either a teacher or a hermit, or they could simply stay as an advanced student.

The main task in the teacher stage, Wolf Stalking a Lantern, was to raise enough funding to start a monastery along with doing fifty thousand prostrations and taking part in an intense meditation series on revenge and righteousness.

The master stage designed for hermits, Hollow Peacock, had a requirement of a three-year, three-month, three-week, and three-day silent meditation, something which I was all too familiar with.

To move up from there, to become a divine master, or Spineless Book as it was traditionally known, one would have to do both the teacher and master stages.

I didn’t know how far along I would get on the path, but I assumed that I’d probably stop at the advanced student stage considering I wasn’t keen on teaching anyone, and, at least at the moment, a three-year meditation was the last thing I wanted to embark upon.

The Way of the Immortals shouldn’t have been on my mind as Saruul led me outside for my nightly battle, the blindfold over my face, yet it was where I found my thoughts drifting.

I had a wooden sword in my hand, the blade about the same length as my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom.

I noticed a peculiar smell in the air that was somewhere between burning straw and diesel fuel.

“What is that?”

“It smells like someone is burning yak dung,” she said, “which means that a caravan must have arrived with supplies. Generally, the people of the caravan stay near their livestock, and they burn their dung to keep warm.”

“Weird,” I said as I got into place.

“Not weird at all. It is totally practical, and you will see why when you visit the Great Plateau. Think of it like a desert, the days are scorchingly hot and the nights incredibly cold. There’s nothing to burn out there, so the traders collect any droppings they can. It doesn’t create a lot of smoke, but it does have a peculiar smell to it.”

“Good to know,” I told her, waiting for her to scurry off as she normally did. But instead of turning back to her home, Saruul stepped in front of me, telling me to remove my blindfold.

“Sure.”

I removed the blindfold to find Saruul still standing there. Dohna was next to her, and as I was about to ask what was happening here, she handed her daughter a sheathed sword with a sparkling hilt.

“Very well,” Saruul said as she retrieved her blade, her mother holding onto the scabbard.

“I have to fight… you?”

“Come on,” Saruul said, loosening up her arms a bit.

I bit my lip.

“You can heal yourself after,” Dohna told me, “but not before.”

“Got it,” I said as I brought my wooden blade up.

I nodded to Saruul.

Dohna took a step back, and as she did, the lioness took off toward me, practically catapulting off the ground.

I barely managed to bring my blade up in time.

Saruul delivered a kick to my stomach that nearly caused me to vomit.

Still dry heaving, I tried to block her next attack, Saruul’s blade slicing against the outer edge of my arm.

It was just a surface wound, but it stung like hell, and it also triggered my time ability.

As she finished her attack, forward momentum sending her in an arc, the fact that she was now frozen allowed me to deliver a blow to her back with my wooden sword, time returning to its normal pace as she flew forward.

I took a step toward her, my sword out, still trying to recover from the kick she delivered to my gut, blood dripping down my arm.

Saruul advanced upon me, a focused look on her face as our blades met. She spun, the tip of her blade coming across my chest and cutting a horizontal line that was at least a foot long.

“Fuck,” I said, the pain making all my nerves fire at once.

I was breathing heavily now, my vision blurring and refocusing.

“Experience the pain, Nick,” Dohna told me, the mother lioness pacing back and forth. “Understand it better. It is the only way to truly gain control over your power.”

“Right,” I said with a nod, ignoring the warmth at the front of my body, the terrible sting, the wetness of my own blood as it was starting to saturate my white robes.

I told myself to focus, and rather than pay attention to the pain, I honed in on my own breath. It was hard not to think about my chest swelling open with each inhalation, but I eventually got control, and not a second too soon either.

Saruul came in for another attack and I managed to block it just in time. She spun again, and I caught her blade with mine, pushing her back.

Completely disregarding the pain now, I swiped my wooden sword at her, Saruul blocking it, a smile on her face as she bared her canines.

“There you go,” she said, giving me almost the same look she gave me when we made love.

But rather than frighten me or turn me on, the way she was looking at me was invigorating, a power coming to me as I temporarily forgot about the two slash marks on my body. She even managed to connect again, actually driving her sword through the outer side of my thigh.

I could feel the injury as I tried to regain my balance, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet, not now.

The leg wound made it hard to move as smoothly as I had before, my arm, thigh, and chest screaming, the muscles torn.

Even though I was ignoring the pain, I couldn’t stop my normal bodily functions, my heart racing, my brain trying to tell me to fill my lungs with as much air as I could.

And breathing heavily was preventing me from really engaging, my natural instinct to block everything.

But this in itself was a small triumph.

Saruul wasn’t going light on me.

And for a moment, I was actually blocking her attacks, anticipating her next moves.

Once again, I was invigorated, confident that I could endure this.

I parried Saruul’s next strike, but the following attack cut deep into my shoulder, to the point that she had to use some leverage to pull her sword out, an arc of blood following her blade.

“Can I stop?” she whispered to her mother.

“No,” I said haggardly. “I’m ready.”

I stumbled toward Saruul and ended up falling face-first onto the stone. She approached me, lowering her blade to the back of my head.

“Death strike,” she said.

Part of me wanted to roll over and try to sweep her off her feet, to finish what I’d already started, but I knew she was right; there was no way I could go on.

“Heal yourself,” Dohna said, “and let’s do this again.”

“Again?” Saruul asked, as I barely managed to trace up the rune that would allow me to heal.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s not a great idea. How long does your healing ability last?” Dohna asked me.

“Five minutes,” I told her.

“No, it’s too risky, especially if you two really go at it. This is fine for tonight. I have something else we can try out once you are healed.”

“Sure,” I told her as my wounds started to stitch up, a sense of euphoria moving through me.

I felt cold, especially with my wet robes, but at least I wasn’t torn to shreds any longer.

Once I was fully healed up, Dohna led me over to the large rock on the other side of our practice space. She told me to sit so the rock was blocking the moon, and once I did, she sat next to me, Saruul on my other side.

“I want you to try to do something you’ve never done before,” Dohna told me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I want you to activate your power while you’re meditating. I’m no expert at meditation, but I believe this is something you haven’t tried yet, correct?”

“No, I haven’t tried.”

“Perhaps you will be able to meditate to the point that you can visualize turning on your power. Try that. Imagine being able to actually turn on your power. Maybe tonight’s not the night that you master this ability, but soon, and exercises like this may help. Let’s just sit here quietly for a while and see if you can do it.”

“I also need to heal you,” I told Saruul, placing my hand on her back where I’d struck earlier.

“That does feel better,” she said as my ability started up.

Once I was done, I stared at the surface of the rock focusing on my breath, breathing all the way to the back of my skull just as Baatar had taught me, my eyes slowly shutting.

Thoughts came, including replays of the fight that I just had.

I labeled them and moved on.

I imagined myself sitting with the snow lion women on either side of me, all of us meditating together. Then I imagined myself drilling into the back of my own head, reaching toward the place that activated my power.

I saw a switch floating in the air and after a deep breath in, I mentally reached my hand out and flicked the switch.

For a moment, nothing happened.

I kept breathing in deeply, trying to see if there had been any changes. I blinked my eyes open only to see the rock, Saruul and her mother seated next to me.

I was about to close my eyes again when I noticed that Saruul’s hand was frozen in the air, as if she had been about to scratch her nose.

“Saruul?” I asked, no response coming from her.

It had worked!

And to turn my power off, I did the same thing, mentally envisioning a switch, reaching out and touching it again.

“I did it,” I announced, both of them turning to me.

“You did?” Dohna asked.

“But it only works with my eyes closed…” I told Saruul’s mother.

“Not necessarily,” she said, a proud smile on her face. “This is your first time controlling your power, Nick. It’s going to take a little bit longer, but you will get to the point that you can activate the power with your eyes open. It will come.”

“You think so?”

“No, I believe so.”

Chapter Eighteen: Reunion

“Bobby is awake,” Altan told me, barely able to contain his excitement. “And he wants to see you.”

I stood with Saruul and Roger at the front of the Temple of Eternal Sky, black clouds on the horizon indicating that it was raining lower on the mountain.

We were actually above the rain, a phenomenon that I still hadn’t been able to process when Altan had come bursting out of the door, one of the younger lion monks at his side.

“He’s been awake for about thirty minutes now,” Altan told me as we passed through the main prayer room, toward a doorway on the right. We stopped there, Altan instructing Roger and Saruul to head into the classroom we’d been using all week, that Jigme wanted to see them.

They did as instructed, Roger perched on Saruul’s shoulder, as Altan and I took a spiral staircase to the second floor.

“How’s he doing?” I asked. “Is he actually forming sentences? Or is it just nonsense?”

“He’s tired, and he needs more rest, but he specifically asked to see you. Your friend can talk, that’s for sure. He also asked for some parchment and a quill. He was going on about some connection between our world and yours, but I figured you would be the best to hear it.”

“And did you tell Lhandon?”

“Lhandon is already in the room with Bobby,” Altan said excitedly. “He was there this morning, reciting a mantra of compassion and healing. He hasn’t left since Bobby woke up.”

“Good to know.”

“How’s your training coming along?” Altan asked as he led me down the hallway with rooms on either side.

There were elaborate frescoes painted on the ceiling, and the smell of incense was heavy in the air, thick as smog.

“It has been interesting,” I said, recalling having to fight Saruul and then the meditation experience that had happened afterward.

I wanted to talk to Lhandon about it, but I needed to test it out again before I really put any confidence in what I’d discovered.

“That’s good to know,” Altan said as he led me into a different room than Bobby had been in the last time I’d visited.

“Nick?” Bobby asked, looking up from his bed. Lhandon, who sat in a chair near Bobby’s bed, immediately stood, offering me the seat.

I took it, my focus only on my old friend as I brought his hand into mine.

“Damn, am I glad to see you,” I told him, my words barely able to contain the excitement I was feeling. It was Bobby, the same Bobby I had grown up with, albeit thinner now, his skin slightly loose around his jowls, the whiskers of his beard slightly white.

“I can’t believe you brought me all the way up here…” Bobby said.

“He knows where we are?” I asked Lhandon.

“The snow lion people were some of the earliest inhabitants of the Kingdom of Lhasa. The debate on their existence stems from an origin story still popular in the east through a song sung by the cat people of the Forbidden City of Trongsa,” Bobby explained, much to my surprise, “which starts off with a verse that goes something like this: The snow brought lions, their furs white and bold, above the clouds they drew their strength, never to turn to the land below.”

“How…?” I looked to Lhandon for an answer.

“It appears that he has come through the portal with a gift as well,” Lhandon said under his breath.

“Amazing.” I wanted to reach forward and help Bobby, but he looked frail, and I had questions, so many questions that I barely knew where to begin.

“I can sing the second verse if you’d like,” Bobby said, his movements a bit loopy, “but I am guessing by the look on your face that we have more important things to talk about. Also, I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach, so if I point at that bucket,” he said, nodding to the bucket by the side of his bed, “please hand it to me.”

“Anything, and no worries, man.”

Bobby smiled. “Lhandon has caught me up on a few things that you already know, that we came through the portal, and that each of us has been given a power, that we’re all technically Golden Ones according to the lore of the land.”

“Yes, and what is your power?”

“It’s going to sound very egotistical for me to say this, but my power lies in here,” Bobby said, bringing his finger to his temple. “No, I’m not a telepath, but for some reason, I’ve been given a profound knowledge of this world, and I’ve been able to mix it with some of the science from our world.”

“Like your smartphone?” I asked, recalling Sona saying that Lhandon had the device.

“Early on, that helped me show people I meant business, as did my fluency in some of the regional dialects of the kingdom, but I’m trying not to rely on that type of tech. It took about a week to really understand what I could do with my power. The problem is…” Bobby licked his lips, his eyes darting left and right, and at that moment, I saw a side of him I’d never seen before. “I can’t turn it off,” he said, grinding his teeth all of a sudden. “It doesn’t stop. My thoughts, the information, the connections. The connections, Nick. I can’t turn them off. I can’t turn them off.”

“Please, just take a deep breath,” Lhandon told him, “as I showed you.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying.” Sweat appeared on Bobby’s brow as he sucked in short breaths of air.

“Relax, dude,” I told him.

“Yes, dude,” Lhandon said, trying to take my tone and use my word. “Relax.”

Bobby and I locked eyes, both looking to Lhandon at the same time. We cracked up like it was old times, Lhandon not sure why we were laughing.

“Do you even know what that word means?” Bobby asked Lhandon.

“Which word?”

“Dude,” I told him.

“It’s a term of endearment, is it not? Sorry if I misused it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bobby said. “And thank you, Altan and Lhandon. Thank you for taking care of me. Anyway, to answer your question, Nick, that’s my power. And it never goes away. Not like yours.”

“Start from the beginning for me,” I told Bobby, focusing in again on the important details. “We got separated, and you became their prisoner. Start there.”

Bobby nodded. “But I have something else I want to tell you, something else I need to show you…”

“Let’s just start there, and work our way up to that point,” I told him.

“Okay,” Bobby said with a nod. “Makes sense. They took me prisoner, and it was a day or so before they brought me back to Nagchu. It was during that trip back to the city that I exhibited my ability for the first time, which made them bring me straight to Madame Mabel.”

“What did you do? How did you exhibit your ability?”

“We came across a series of trees that attacked us, if you can believe that.”

“I can definitely believe that.”

“In our world, at least in fantasy gaming, dryads don’t usually attack people,” Bobby explained, “but we aren’t in our world, and once they attacked, I started speaking to the plants in their own language.”

“You can speak the plant language?” Altan asked.

“It just came to me, almost as if I were in a trance. I got the plants to free the men, and rather than take me to become a slave, where I would have met you…” he said, looking at Altan.

“Wait, how do you know he was a former slave?” I asked Bobby.

“Because he has all the markings of a slave. Do you see how his ears were once pierced?” Bobby asked, referring to the earrings that Altan had since taken out and the indention they left behind. “Only her most elite slaves were allowed to wear those. Even the townspeople of Nagchu don’t wear jewelry like that. While he no longer wears it, I can tell that it was once there. In fact, Mabel’s whole strategy of control was based on having power over a class beneath you, a hierarchy system. That’s why people were loyal to her. They always thought that they were a class higher than someone else, even the slaves.”

Altan nodded in agreement.

“But back to my story. It became evident relatively quickly that I had a gift with knowledge. In my first week there, I helped her civil engineers figure out a better system for irrigation. I was also able to translate some of the text utilized for those practicing the Path of Possession that was once thought to be lost. It was Sona who brought back the text from a monastery they happened to come across. I believe you know her.”

“Yes,” I told Bobby, remembering the scantily clad woman and her powerful sword.

“And it was around that time that they introduced me to…” Bobby licked his lips again.

“It’s fine, you are better now,” I told him. “It’s going to take some time.”

“I know, and I’m sorry…” Bobby said, his eyes lowered. “Have you tried lotus?”

I quickly told Bobby about how I’d lit the lotus fields on fire, inhaling it as I escaped the plantation. He listened eagerly, his throat quivering at times.

“Then you know its power,” he finally said.

“What about Evan?” I asked him, wanting to get off the subject of lotus. “What do you know about him?”

“Aside from the fact that he’s a fat piece of shit who we were right to have never liked, and a man who Tom should have deleted from his life years ago?”

“Yes,” I said with a chuckle. “Aside from that part.”

“He showed up in Nagchu about two weeks after I first got there. I don’t know how he convinced those guys to let him go on patrol with them, but he had, and in the meantime, he had truly honed his skills.”

“And what are his skills exactly?” I asked him.

“Evan has been given this ability to hit any target he likes with any object. He simply has to focus on it and he hits it. I’m talking he could make a paper airplane, and throw it off a mountain into a teacup. His power is phenomenal. Naturally, he has taken to the crossbow, because they don’t have firearms here. He did speak to me a few times about creating firearms, but…” Bobby shook his head. “I didn’t do it. Even though I know how they would work, and I could theoretically draw the schematics for one, I didn’t want to give him an advantage. So I played dumb. And to play dumb, I got high…”

“Damn, man,” I said, again recognizing the shame in his eyes.

“I know that you guys are planning to go to the Island Kingdom in search of Hugo and the reincarnation of the Exonerated One,” Bobby said, nodding to Lhandon, “but you had better be prepared for how the Kingdom of Lhasa will have changed once you return. Evan and Sona will continue the war with Madame Blanche, Madame Darwina on their side. If there was a mutiny, I’m going to assume it has been squashed by now. And Darwina would be foolish to go against Evan and Sona.”

“We will be ready,” I assured him.

Bobby bit his lip. “It may not be as easy as you think it will be.”

“I am certain it will be difficult.”

“Good, just so we’re on the same page. There’s another thing I wanted to talk about. So you are familiar with the five Immortals, who came here in two separate portals.”

“Yes, two thousand years ago.”

“Another group tried, a thousand years ago, but they were killed relatively quickly, so yes, I’m referring to the first five, the main five. Haven’t you figured it out yet?” he asked suddenly, looking at me in a very lucid way now.

“Figured what out?”

“The language, the runic characters, the names of the cities…”

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t really big into world history, are you?” Bobby asked me.

“I mean, it’s been a while since I took a history class, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He waved my statement away. “The naming convention of this kingdom and the other four kingdoms all come from three basic language groups, Tibetan, Bhutanese, which are related, and Mongolian, which isn’t related, but does have a connection with Tibet and the Buddhism practice there and in Bhutan. The script itself also borrows from Japanese. Let’s take this kingdom, the Kingdom of Lhasa. In our world, ‘Lhasa’ is the capital of Tibet, and it is still an important city, even if China now rules over the Tibetan Autonomous Region with more oppression I would care to discuss at the moment. Regarding the meaning of the word, ‘Lhasa’ itself means ‘seat of the God,’ ‘lha’ meaning ‘god’ and ‘sa’ meaning ‘seat.’ With that understanding, this kingdom is the seat of all gods, even if the word doesn’t translate the same way we would translate it in our world.”

“This is blowing my mind…”

“Ready to have it blown even more?” Bobby reached for the piece of parchment, his hand trembling as he scribbled something out. “Are you familiar with this?” he asked me after he showed me the characters.

“I can’t say that I am,” I told him, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that all the names here actually came from our world.

“Om mani padme hum, the popular Tibetan prayer which is generally meant to be a prayer to the Dalai Lama, where the speaker of the prayer is asking to take refuge in the bodhisattva of compassion, or His Holiness. Actually, as an aside, the name ‘Dalai Lama’ is a combination of Mongolian and Tibetan, the word ‘dalai’ being the Mongolian word for ‘ocean,’ and the word ‘lama’ translating to wisdom. Ocean of wisdom. I could get into more detail than that, but I won’t. The point is, do these characters look familiar to you?”

“They sort of look like…” My eyes went wide as I looked at what he’d written.

I noticed that there were six main characters, with subscripts on the last two characters. The first character almost looked like the letter W, while the characters that followed had similar styles and curves to the script I used for runes.

Bobby smiled. “You get it now, don’t you? The characters here are based on the characters used in Tibet and Bhutan.”

“Not Mongolia?”

“No, Mongolians currently use a script called Hudum Mongol bichig that looks like vertical Arabic. They actually used a horizontal square script designed by Tibetans years ago, but that was for only a hundred years. Anyway, I digress. Kenzo, who helped design the script, clearly was from Japan in both his name and the Japanese influence in the characters. Let me give you an example. This reads ‘excuse me,’ or sumimasen.”

The Japanese script was a lot lighter than the Tibetan script, with similar lines and fewer markings above the characters. I also noticed there weren’t any stacked characters like the Tibetan script exhibited.

“So, if you didn’t know, the Japanese people actually came from China. But this was thousands and thousands of years ago, and since they were technically Chinese, they utilized the Chinese script, which made up the Japanese script known as Kanji, of which there are something like twenty thousand characters. This was simplified by a monk into Hiragana, which was later simplified into Katakana to spell out foreign words. The script I’ve written here is in Hiragana. All this to say: the characters used in the Kingdom of Lhasa and the other kingdoms seems to be a mixture of the Tibetan and Katakana. Are you following me?”

I glanced between Lhandon and Altan, neither of them certain how to interpret this information.

“Never mind. It gets complicated. I need to read the Book of the Immortals,” Bobby said suddenly. “I need to read every book in the library here at the temple. But for now…” He took a deep breath in, clenching his jaw shut. “I need to rest. I can feel a migraine coming on. I’m sorry. Thank you for stopping by, Nick. Let’s meet again before you leave tomorrow. Again, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry…” He kept repeating himself for a moment, occasionally twitching his head. “Sorry…”

“Let’s step out,” Lhandon said, coming to me suddenly. “It is important that your friend gets some rest. I’m sure we can learn more from him tomorrow, and once we return to Dornod, once he is better.”

Chapter Nineteen: A Journey Begins

“I wish you the best of luck,” Jigme said, bowing his head at us. Roger, Lhandon, Tashi, Saruul and I sat before him, Altan still upstairs taking care of Bobby.

Jigme had just finished an elaborate ritual which involved tracing up a few runes of protection using the smoke of an incense stick, the smell of sandalwood heavy in the air. He wore several prayer beads around his neck, and also had a string wrapped around his arm.

The back doors swung open.

A few of the younger lion monks filed into the space carrying large packs with them, and an assortment of gifts.

“You shouldn’t have,” Lhandon said, bowing again.

“Nonsense. I told you that I would help you prepare for your trip across the Great Plateau, and I meant it,” Jigme said.

One of his monks brought forth a stack of folded gray scarves.

“These scarves have all been blessed, and they will help you face the terrible tundra that is the Great Plateau,” Jigme explained. “You are about to enter a world of extremes that most citizens of Lhasa would never dare to cross. You will need to protect yourselves from the elements.”

The young lion monk distributed the scarves to us. They even had a smaller one specifically designed for Roger with a hole in it, allowing the scarf to fit snugly around his thick neck.

“Not bad,” Roger said as I helped him put the scarf on.

“It is unfortunate that we, as a people, have forgotten the ability to trance-walk.”

“Trance-walk?” Lhandon asked as he took the scarf from the young monk, also offering the man a polite bow.

“Perhaps you have heard of it, Tashi,” Jigme said, looking to the fire spirit.

“I have, and I’ve actually seen it in action,” he explained. “There was a time when the only way to reach Sarpang was by crossing the Great Plateau. People attempted going there by sea, but the boats weren’t very sturdy, and they generally had to send two ships knowing that only one of them would arrive. So yes, I have crossed the Great Plateau before, and I’ve seen trance-walking in action. It was morning, and we were packing up when we saw a cloud of dust heading our way. There can be dust storms out there, you know, so we assumed it was one of those, but one of our men who had crossed the Plateau shouted for us to move aside. It was a trance-walker.”

“You actually saw someone doing it?” Lhandon asked, his eyes wide with amazement.

“Yes, Exalted One. And it was absolutely phenomenal. The man simply floated past us, his feet barely moving. He was whispering a mantra, a wave of energy spiraling around him, his hands pressed into a prayer position in front of his heart. We were told not to disturb him, to simply stand still. It was only a moment later that he passed us.”

“So it is a form of fast traveling?” I asked.

“An enlightened form of fast traveling,” Jigme corrected me, “one that has mostly been forgotten about.”

The way the lion monk was grinning at us told me that there was more to the story, and it wasn’t but a few seconds later that he slowly placed his hands on his knees, a flicker behind his eyes. “Perhaps it isn’t completely forgotten. Perhaps there is a hermit who has taken refuge on one of the cliffs surrounding Lion’s Peak. Perhaps he would be able to teach us how this power worked.”

“Someone still knows the skill?” Lhandon asked. “Because if that is the case, we must go to him.”

Jigme considered this for a moment, an indecipherable look on his face. Finally, he spoke: “I agree, but first, I think it is best for you to return to Dornod, to give me time to send out some scouts to see if he is even willing to teach us. The journey you are about to undertake will send you through the Plateau to the Island Kingdom, and your return quest will likely be through the eastern part of Lhasa, which may prove to be incredibly fruitful when it comes to new concepts learned, powers discovered, and perhaps abilities mastered,” he said, focusing on me.

I nodded.

“Is there something you would like to tell us?” Jigme asked after I didn’t say anything.

“I was able to will my power to activate through meditation last night,” I nearly blurted out.

“You what?” Lhandon asked.

“I don’t want to rely on it yet, and I’m still early in the process, but it seems promising. Dohna thinks it will be the way to utilize my power in the future.”

I felt Saruul’s tail graze against me.

While it was nice being here at the temple, the fact that we were leaving was on my mind, and a big part of me wanted to spend the rest of my time here with her. I felt a spark between us at that moment, and part of me knew that she was thinking the same thing too.

“That’s absolutely wonderful, Nick,” Lhandon said. “It seems like the training is doing you good.”

“Yeah, when he’s not having his ass handed to him, his training is doing him fine,” Roger commented.

“What did he say?”

“He was agreeing with you,” I told Lhandon, ignoring Saruul as she brought her hand to her mouth to cover a laugh.

“The snow lion people, while actively trying to avoid the Great Plateau, are accustomed to crossing it from time to time. Your packs are filled with items to aid you in your journey. But unfortunately, food provisions and extra clothing and blankets may not suffice. It is very rough terrain out there. It can be excruciatingly hot during the day, and colder than the crest of the highest mountain in Lhasa during the night,” Jigme explained. “You will likely run out of water, so you will need to think of ways to find more. You do have the advantage of having a bird and a fire spirit with you, which will give you eyes in the sky, and an ability to stay warm. There is no telling who you will encounter out there. Just remember that a caravan that looks seemingly innocuous can actually be a band of treasure hunters and thieves. Or worse…” He shook his head. “But it is the fastest way to get to Sarpang, that fact can’t be denied.”

“What about when we get there?” I asked, trying to stay positive about the journey.

“We will find passage to the Island Kingdom,” Lhandon told me. “The home of the Druk people is essentially a merchant outpost with ships going in and out at all times. We will have to be cautious when we get there, though.”

I recalled the Druk people, with their reptilian faces and the way they blinked vertically. I didn’t want to assume snakelike qualities about them, but apparently, it was par for the course, especially considering the powerful monk Sona had fighting for her back at the monastery.

“You may be weak by the time you arrive,” Jigme said, “and the Druk people are predatory in nature.”

“As long as I don’t get eaten by anything, and I have access to my knife, I think I will be fine,” Roger said, puffing his chest out with confidence.

“Yes, you can always fly away,” Tashi added.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I will fight if I have to, I’m just saying that…” Roger hopped around for a moment. “I don’t know what I’m saying. We’ve been talking about this journey for so long now that I’m just ready to do it. We could set off tonight, if you want.”

“No,” Jigme said firmly. “You will set off tomorrow. Tonight is the eve of the final day of the Winter Moon festival. Most of the people of Dornod will be out, and it isn’t safe for you to leave during that time. It’s safer to wait until tomorrow morning to leave. Besides, it is more auspicious that way.”

“So I shouldn’t go out tonight?” Roger asked.

Saruul smirked. “Why? Do you miss a particular white bird?”

“No, like I said, they are too crazy for my taste. Sure, it’s fun for a night or two, but these birds up here…” Roger whistled. “Real freaks. I was just thinking about, you know, one more night out on the town.”

“If you are willing to take the risk, then sure, do what you want, Roger.”

“He’s not saying anything important,” I told Lhandon before he could ask me.

“Let’s have some tea,” Jigme said. “Afterwards, we can finish the Broken Sword meditation series. I am assuming by the time that the four of you return to Dornod that you will all have done enough prostrations to become advanced students. I will endeavor to reach that level as well. Then, all we’ll need to do is go through the meditations and improve upon the stages if necessary.”

“How many prostrations is that again?” Roger asked the lion monk.

“Eleven thousand. One thousand for the novice stage, and ten thousand for the cultivator stage.”

He whistled again. “I just want to reach the cultivator stage.”

Jigme smiled at Roger. “It is good for you to set goals, and perhaps they will inspire you to climb even higher. Now, I believe it is time for us to have some tea, to stretch our legs, and prepare for our meditation. It is the last one we will do together for some time.”

“There are more things we will need to discuss,” Lhandon said, “including what Bobby revealed to us this morning.”

“In due time. He will be here while you are away, and I will be sure to have Altan keep detailed notes on his revelations. Now, let’s enjoy some tea.”

The rest of the day flew by.

I wanted to cherish my last hours in Dornod, especially knowing what lay ahead, but with the meditation, then another snack, and then more instruction from Jigme and Lhandon, the sun was setting by the time we arrived back at Saruul’s place.

Her mother had already started working on dinner, and as soon as we entered, Saruul went to the kitchen to help her.

“What about you?” I asked Roger. “Are you staying in for the night?”

“I guess,” he said, dragging his feet across the stone floor. “It’s probably best that I get some rest, especially if I’m going to be doing most of the scouting tomorrow.”

“And the day after that, and the day after that,” I reminded him.

“I can’t wait,” he said, winking at me.

He flew to the kitchen and landed on the island countertop, watching Saruul and her mother finish preparing dinner.

“I hope they don’t mind that I came too,” Lhandon said quietly, the portly monk the last to enter the home. Tashi was with us as well, the fire spirit about a foot tall at the moment.

“Nonsense, she said to invite you. Altan too.”

“He wanted to catch up on the meditation that we did earlier,” Lhandon explained. “He really is dedicated, you know?”

I nodded. “He was a slave all of his life who wanted nothing more than to practice the Path of the Divine. I can believe that he’s dedicated, and I’ve seen it in not only his work ethic, but his actions since joining you.”

“He may reach a level that even I can’t obtain,” Lhandon said as he turned to the kitchen.

Dinner was served about thirty minutes later, tray after tray of cured meats and peculiar mountain fruits, yak cheese as well. This was followed by a very pungent tea that Dohna said was brewed especially for Winter Moon Eve.

As we sipped the tea, Roger told us more of the escapades he had gotten into down at sea level.

I knew some of his tales were hyperbolic, like the story about him fighting off a baby sea dragon, or the story of him rescuing a young maiden from a well in Nagchu, but I let him tell them anyway, glad to see Saruul and her mother amused. Once it started to grow late, Tashi offered to escort Lhandon back to the monastery.

“I can go as well,” Saruul said. “It is best if there is a snow lion with him, especially tonight. Do you want to come too, Nick?”

“If you think it’s safe…”

“Better bring your sword,” she said, and for a moment I thought she was kidding, until I noticed that the tone of her voice hadn’t actually changed.

She was being serious.

I retrieved my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, leaving Roger and Dohna behind as I joined Lhandon, Saruul, and Tashi at the door.

It was cool outside, the temperature dropping rapidly.

The smell of booze was heavy in the air as we passed a local pub, men and women outside clinking their drinks together and speaking loudly. A few of them were in their lion forms, lapping up chung from metal saucers.

I could hear chatter in the distance, in the direction of the festival grounds from a few days ago. There was something electric in the air, the excitement in the village almost tangible. I only wished it were safer for us to partake.

We made it to the Temple of Eternal Sky and bid farewell to Lhandon.

“Please tell your mother that dinner was excellent,” he said to Saruul for the third time. “And that I wished I had eaten there more than once over the last couple days. Maybe don’t tell her that last part. I don’t want to sound gluttonous.”

Saruul smiled at Lhandon. “You are fine. And it was wonderful having you over. When you return to Dornod…” she swallowed hard, dropping her hand into mine. “We will have you over again.”

With that, we turned away from the temple, Tashi even smaller than he had been before, at about three inches tall, floating directly over my shoulder.

We made our way up the street that led to Saruul’s home, careful to avoid anyone who looked drunk. We were just about to reach her home when we heard someone call out to us.

“I thought you would be here.” Champa stepped out of the shadow with a couple of his lion friends, all of them wasted. Tashi shifted behind me, hiding himself from the three men.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” I told him.

I could see Saruul’s house, just a few doors down, and I was starting to step around Champa when he moved to block me.

“Where are you going?” he asked, baring his teeth, his eyes narrowing on me, his breath reeking.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I told him, placing a hand on the hilt of my sword.

“Or what?”

“You really don’t know who he is, do you?” Saruul asked.

“You brought someone from sea level up here,” Champa said, his friends growling now, their faces starting to morph. “You know better than to do something like that. But you always were always a stupid—”

I unsheathed my blade, the flames lifting into the air. Tashi grew in size, so it looked as if I had giant fiery wings behind me.

Champa’s face went white, the fire from my weapon and Tashi’s flames dancing across the surface of his eyes. One of his friends morphed and took off; the other cowardly lion hid behind Champa.

“Care to call it a night?” I asked him, staring down at the man now, ready to engage. I felt Saruul’s hand on my arm, but I didn’t lower my weapon. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” I told him. “So either you let us pass, or…”

I shrugged.

It really was pointless threatening him when I had a flaming sword and a fire spirit behind me.

He either got that we meant business, or he didn’t.

The light from my weapon and from Tashi’s form illuminated the area; I knew it would draw attention soon, if we hadn’t already.

“You think you can just come here and…”

“Last chance,” I told him.

Champa said something under his breath before morphing into a lion. He roared, veins appearing on the side of his neck as his mane stood on its ends. But rather than engage me, he took off running, his friend following behind him.

I sheathed my blade; Tashi maintained his form behind me until we reached Saruul’s home.

“Sorry about that,” I told her, registering the concern on her face.

“No, it’s fine, but…”

“Seriously, I’m sorry.”

“He’s going to try again.” Saruul turned to me, and reached for my hand. “Lions like that don’t give up. Now that you have challenged him, you should be ready for him when you return.”

“You could just come with us,” I said suddenly, misreading the way she was looking at me. “Please, I really wish you would.”

“I can’t do that, Nick. It’s better if I stay here.”

“Okay, how about this? Make me a promise.”

“A promise?”

“Promise me that if I leave and return to Dornod, the next time we go out, you’ll come with us. Promise me that.”

“I don’t know…” she said, glancing away.

“Please, I know that you prefer it up here, but from what I’ve already seen of this world, it’s an incredible place. I would like to experience some of it with you.”

She hesitated, finally nodding her head. “Okay, I promise.”

It was inevitable.

Eventually, the time came for Saruul to blindfold me, to lead me outside, where I was told to wait for the signal.

The wait was longer this time, the cold cutting deep, but the grunt eventually came.

I removed my blindfold, ready for anything.

I threw my arm back, hoping to counter one of their attacks.

Nothing.

I thought I saw a shadow move to my left, so I kicked my heel out.

Again, nothing.

I was on edge, swiveling left and right, throwing punches and preparing blocks, waiting for my opponents to come out of nowhere.

It went on like this for a few minutes, every sound and every indication that someone was there triggering a reaction.

I felt an energy moving through me that I hadn’t noticed before, a feeling of power, and even though I was tense, I also felt a sense of ease.

No one was coming for me.

And once I was sure of this, when I was sure that someone wasn’t going to jump out from behind the boulder that was nearby, or come running across the rocky soil, I took a deep breath in and sat down with my legs crossed beneath me.

It was then that I saw the masked lion monk standing there, a shadow partially obscuring his form.

But rather than engage him, I brought my hands down to my legs, and closed my eyes, breathing all the way to the back of my skull, visualizing the switch that activated my power.

It took me a few breaths but I eventually saw it, and rather than reach out for it right away, I simply observed it, aware that my opponents would always be circling me like vultures, no matter what I did, that my only real strategy was to stay balanced and focus on my breath.

I flicked the switch that activated my power, blinking my eyes open to find the masked lion man seated before me, also in a meditative posture.

I couldn’t tell if time was frozen or not, and I didn’t care.

Rather than say anything I simply closed my eyes again, hitting the switch again, focusing on my breath.

I don’t know how long I sat like that, but my legs were numb by the time I finally came out of my trance.

The masked lion monk was gone.

Saruul waited for me, candles lit in the four corners of the bedroom.

“Are you okay?” she asked as I slipped inside, quietly shutting the door behind me.

“Fine, better than ever.”

“You won?”

“No, but I didn’t lose,” I told her, loosening my robes. “I simply started meditating, and he did the same. And that was it. It was a strange experience, that’s for sure.”

Saruul came into my arms. She wore a black silk robe, nude underneath. “You know you have more training to do, right?”

I placed my hands on her hips, instantly feeling aroused. “You mean when I return?”

She nodded.

“I’m aware.”

Saruul was ravenous from that point forward, our bodies locked in union, our shadows etched onto the wall. We went at it as quietly as possible, the experience deeply satisfying and incredibly real.

I truly felt at ease with her, completely myself.

Once we were finished, Saruul walked to the other side of her bedroom and looked at me over her shoulder. “Do you want to see me?”

“I can already see you.”

“As a true snow lion, the way that we are supposed to look when we don’t wear magical black clothing,” she said.

Rather than wait for me to answer, she began to morph into a beautiful white lioness.

She leaped back onto the bed, nudging my face with her head, her whiskers poking me. She licked the side of my cheek; I couldn’t help but scratch her behind her ears.

Saruul growled at me and morphed back to her human form, not able to stop from laughing.

“What is this tendency you have to pet me when I am a lion?” she asked once she finished laughing.

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Not pet me!”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

Saruul got comfortable and placed her head in the nook of my arm.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I said, still staring at the ceiling.

“Yes?”

“When we first met you said something about having my child. You haven’t mentioned anything since. Should I… be worried about this?”

“Worried?” Saruul started laughing again. “Trust me, Nick, there’s nothing to be worried about, I’m not pregnant.”

“Then what was all that about?”

“Lions in heat can be somewhat aggressive,” she said. “I suppose that’s what was happening at the time, but it didn’t work out. Not that I would mind having your child.”

“It would be cute, I think. I’ve seen a few cubs running around here.”

“That’s if it could morph,” she said. “There’s really no telling. And I agree, it would be cute. Maybe a little tuft of brown hair…”

We both laughed at that, Saruul pressing even closer to me.

The candles slowly started to fizzle out, her room changing to a light shade of blue, morning coming soon.

I didn’t want our time together to end, but eventually, both of us fell asleep, only to be woken up hours later by Roger tapping his beak on the door.

“Trust me,” he called from the other side, “I’m not here to serve you breakfast in bed. Mama lion sent me up to get you guys. We’re supposed to be at the temple, Nick, not that we don’t have somewhere important to go and all…”

“Crap,” I said, pulling Saruul closer to me for just a moment.

“You should go,” she said firmly.

“What? You don’t want to come to the temple with me?”

“I don’t know when I will see you again. I want to remember you here, with me,” she said, sitting up a little, and bringing her lips to my cheek. “Like this. So no, I’m not going to go bid you farewell, or anything like that. This is the last moment I want to remember, just in case…”

“I’m coming back. Mark my words, I will be back for you. And then…” I grinned at her. “Then you can go on our next adventure with us.”

“How about you work on getting back first?”

After getting dressed, I met Roger outside of the bedroom, the bird hopping around on the stone floor, excited.

“What’s got you so worked up?” I asked him.

“Don’t you feel it?” he asked, lifting into the air to do a spiral. “We are finally, finally, getting out of the lion village. I thought this day would never come!”

“It hasn’t been that bad.”

“It also hasn’t been that great, aside from my fur vest.” He hopped into the air and did another spin.

“Easy, easy. Don’t you have a white bird or two to say goodbye to?”

Roger flew up to my shoulder. “Real funny, Nick.”

We greeted Dohna downstairs, who already had a breakfast of porridge and berries laid out for us. She didn’t say anything about her daughter not coming downstairs, and once I was done eating, she wished me luck, reminding me that my training wasn’t over yet.

“I’m aware,” I told her.

“It will only be harder when you come back,” Dohna reminded me.

“Hopefully, I’ll come back stronger.”

“One could only wish.”

And that was it.

Roger and I left Saruul’s home, turning toward the temple.

Dornod was the quietest I’d ever seen it, most of the citizens sleeping off the chung they’d consumed the previous night. We reached the temple without issue, aside from a gust of wind that nearly blew my robes open, forcing me to tighten the belt that kept everything intact.

We saw Lhandon at the top of the steps, Tashi next to him, and Jigme standing off to the right, his hands behind his back.

“I was about to come to you,” Lhandon said, concern in his eyes.

“No worries, I just felt like sleeping in.”

“Well, I hope you feel rested.”

“Sort of. What about Bobby?” I asked, looking up at the temple. “Is he awake?”

Lhandon shook his head. “He was awake earlier, a bit lucid too, but he has since fallen back to sleep. You should still try to see him, though.”

“Good call.”

Roger transferred to Lhandon’s shoulder, the portly monk turning his attention back to Jigme, to a conversation that they were having on trance-walking. I entered the temple and headed upstairs, straight through a cloud of incense, where I found Altan sitting next to Bobby’s bed.

“He will be better by the time you come back,” Altan assured me. “As long as he continues to get his rest, he will recover from this. I have faith in him. I believe I’ll have one of the lion shamans come in the next few days too. Perhaps the lion people have a more spiritual remedy to aid your friend.”

“Thank you.”

“There is nothing to thank me for, Nick.”

I walked over to Bobby and placed my hand on his arm. “I don’t know if you can hear me, buddy, but I am rooting for you. It might be a couple months before I get back, but when I do, I expect you to help me figure out a way for us to get out of this place.”

I paused, considering what I’d just said.

Did I really want to leave?

It would be something I would have to meditate on during our journey.

There would come a time in the future, especially if Bobby was as smart as he seemed to be, that I would have to make a hard decision. And after the night I’d spent with Saruul, I was starting to really second guess leaving this world...

I smiled down at my friend again, all the time we had spent together flashing before my mind's eye.

“I’ll be back,” I assured Bobby.

After speaking with Altan for another minute or two, I returned to the steps of the Temple of Eternal Sky to find Lhandon with a large pack on his back. I saw my pack and put it on as well, the weight instantly bearing down on my shoulders.

“I wish you all the best of luck,” Jigme said, bowing to us, his ears flattening. “I have instructed Tashi and Lhandon on the easiest ways to get to the Great Plateau from here. The trip down won’t be very difficult, but when you reach the Plateau, things will become much harder. Be very careful out there, and be wary of letting anyone join with you. There are generations of thieves that live on the Plateau, and they can be quite clever. Our desire for compassion,” he told Lhandon, “only allows them to deceive us more. If you see vultures circling, try to go around them because it could be a trap. There are some water sources along the way, but just be aware that they generally freeze at night, and they won’t melt until the afternoon. Which means the afternoon is when you should fill up on water.”

“Yes, and we have discussed a way for us to do that,” Tashi said with a firm nod.

“We certainly have,” Jigme bowed his head at us again. “Now, good luck, and I expect to see you back in Dornod when you return to the Kingdom of Lhasa. For your return, you will each find a copy of the map that should serve as a guide through the eastern part of Lhasa in your packs. You could theoretically go all the way from there to here, but as I have previously suggested, I think it is best to go to the Forbidden City of Trongsa and hire a cat guide from there.”

“Thank you,” Lhandon said, bowing, Tashi doing the same.

“It has been a true pleasure,” I told Jigme.

“Remember to stick together. And Roger…”

“Yes?” the bird asked the lion monk.

“Keep an eye on all of them.”

Chapter Twenty: Sand

Jigme was right.

The trek down from the village of Dornod wasn’t too arduous, and the lower altitude made it a bit easier to breathe.

It took us the rest of the day to get down, mostly because our packs were heavy and that Lhandon and I chose to stop for meditation breaks every hour or so. The path was nothing like what lay ahead.

The Great Plateau stretched as far as the eye could see, no mountains in the distance, an endless horizon that reminded me of the surface of the moon. Jigme hadn’t mentioned the Great Plateau was sandy, a few dunes visible from our current location. It was going to make a long walk even harder.

“How many days do we have ahead of us?” I asked, realizing that no one had mentioned this detail earlier.

“I’d say three or four,” Tashi said. “But it really depends on how quickly we move.”

The fire spirit floated off to my right, Roger on my shoulder, and Lhandon to my left, all of us staring out at the Great Plateau, mesmerized by its barren vastness.

“Then we better get moving,” I said as I took the first step.

“It truly is a blessing to see something like this,” Lhandon said as we started walking. “There are so many poems written about the Great Plateau, especially from the nalropa Drukpa Kunley, but to actually see it with your own eyes... I wouldn’t be surprised if we came across some gravestones, so be on the lookout for them. Hopefully, they aren’t buried in the sand.”

“Why would we be looking for gravestones again?” I asked Lhandon.

“I suppose I should clarify. The Great Plateau is a popular place for hermits and higher-level monks to die. Some, especially those who have reached certain stages on the path, actually know when they are on their deathbed, and come here to die through meditation, offering their dead bodies to the animals. Others request that their bodies be transported here, once they have died in their monasteries and hermitages, for the animals to consume them.”

“Why would they want to die here?” Roger asked.

“He’s asking why they want to die here, correct?” asked Lhandon.

“Yes,” I told him. “You’re getting better at translating bird talk.”

Lhandon laughed. “I look forward to the day that I can have a conversation with you, Roger,” he said, smiling fondly at the bird.

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Roger said. “I can be a little chatty.”

“Yes, you can,” I told him.

“Anyway,” Lhandon said, as we moved onto a pathway filled with sand, both of us having to work overtime considering the packs we were carrying. “The reason they want to die here is because of an old belief that dying in the Great Plateau can lead to a variety of boons, from an auspicious rebirth to the creation of a double.”

“A double?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen one myself, but the Exonerated One claimed to have seen one during his time in prison. It is exactly what it sounds like, a transparent copy of a person. We have to be careful out here,” Lhandon said, a look of fear coming across his face, “this is said to be the place they come from, and while they are intangible, the more powerful ones can actually communicate in certain ways.”

“Because that’s not scary,” Roger said. “So to recap, we’re going into a barren wasteland that has ghosts walking around, thieves, and killer temperatures. Great. Why am I suddenly not as excited as I was earlier?”

“It won’t be as bad as it sounds,” Tashi assured him. “I’ve crossed it before, remember?”

“How many years ago was that? A thousand?”

Tashi smiled, a lick of flame swirling around his head. “I suppose it was a thousand years ago.”

“Who knows how much this place has changed since then,” Roger grumbled.

I noticed that the sand beneath us was getting thicker. After trudging through it for a moment, we switched to a new path with less sand, able to walk with ease again. “So what did the double that visited the Exonerated One do?”

“He claimed that the double was there to see another person, the Exonerated One simply watching it pass through his cell. He ran to the bars and saw it stop in another man’s cell, and stand before him.” Lhandon shivered. “The double just glared down at the man until he woke up. Something like that. It gave the man a heart attack, you know. He died.”

Roger lifted off my shoulder and rose into the air, doing a circle around us.

“Anything up there?”

“Nope, no doubles or bird doubles, um…” Roger returned to my shoulder. “Good news! There seems to be some water ahead.”

“Perhaps we should fill up there,” Tashi suggested.

The fire spirit dropped his hands into the sand, a swirl of glass starting to take shape. He continued what he was doing until he formed a gourd. Lhandon joined him and lowered his hands near the gourd, the sand instantly cooling through his crackling ice ability.

“I can also form something we can use to latch the gourds to your belts.” Tashi lowered his fingers in the sand and lifted up a curl of melted glass. He smoothed it onto the side of the gourd, forming a little loop, which Lhandon then cooled down.

He made another one for Lhandon’s belt, and then two more for the hooks onto our packs.

“We had better get there fast,” Roger said, shivering. “It seems like the place is about to turn cold very quickly.”

We hurried toward the body of water that Roger had spotted, which turned out to be a fairly decent-sized pond. The sun was completely set now, yet the sky was still light, the pond reflecting pink and purple tones, the water crystal clear, polished rocks beneath its surface.

“Maybe we can fish in here tomorrow…” Roger said.

“But it’ll freeze over,” I reminded him.

“I can easily burn a hole through the top,” Tashi said.

“Good plan,” I told him as we filled the gourds, which were going to freeze tonight unless we kept them near Tashi.

This would be an ongoing issue we ran into: Tashi was going to have to stay in one place to keep us warm, but that would also limit his ability to protect us.

This could also draw attention to our small group.

Looking around, and realizing yet again just how far out we were, actually made my limbs tingle for a moment.

I instantly imagined what the place looked like at night, how dark it would be aside from the stars in the sky, which naturally made me think of the doubles that Lhandon had mentioned.

Part of me believed him, the other part of me hoping that it was just a folk superstition.

But if they couldn’t do anything to us…

I shook my head.

Considering the things that I had already been through in Lhasa, running into a few spirits was the least of my concerns.

I smiled at my own thoughts, glad to have talked myself down from the edge of the cliff.

Once my pack was off, I took the blanket out of it and wrapped it around my shoulders, clipping it just as Lhandon had shown me to do. I also wrapped the scarf Jigme had given me around my head, in a way that I could tighten it if I wanted to.

We shared dried meats and berries, and once we were finished, we found a few larger rocks to use for a fire pit.

“Do not worry,” Tashi assured us, his arms now crossed over his chest as he floated above the fire pit. “I will keep you warm, and I will make sure no one approaches us. If someone dares disturb us, I will engage him to the best of my abilities, giving both of you time to wake up and help.”

“I’ll have my sword with me as well,” I told Tashi, placing my sheathed blade at my side.

I laid down on one side of the fire pit, Lhandon on the other. The sky above was dark now, the stars sparkling as a cold breeze blew over the sand dunes.

Roger got under my blankets, mumbling something about how he couldn’t wait for our journey to take us to warmer climates.

“In due time,” I told him.

I looked over at Lhandon to see him meditating.

I had the urge to the same, but I could tell that Roger was cold, so I decided to do my meditating in the morning.

As I lay there, staring up at a star-filled sky, I recalled the time that I went camping in the Berkshires. There really was nothing like Western Massachusetts, especially during the fall and the spring, the times of seasonal change, the leaves orange and rustic like an abandoned mining town, the spring bringing beautiful flowers, the trees turning green after a long winter.

I remembered the smells, the awe-inspiring drive along the Mohawk Trail, the silver morning mist making the place look otherworldly.

I should have stayed out there, rather than move closer to Boston, to Worcester, replacing mountains and beautiful forests with red brick buildings, blight, and the hope of urban revival always at a fingers distance.

Yet here I was, in what was essentially the desert of another world.

I got the urge to meditate again, but I could tell that Roger was warm, so I simply laid there until I fell asleep, thinking of Massachusetts, going over the things that had happened since arriving in the Kingdom of Lhasa, and wondering what the true endgame was here, what this was all building up to.

While I had my suspicions, there really was no telling.

Morning came, and it was only when I slipped out of my blanket that I realized just how cold it had become.

“Where are you going?” Tashi asked me.

“Just to take a piss,” I told him as I walked a few steps away, the coldness radiating from the soles of my feet up to my shoulders.

I focused yet again on my inner warmth, sparking the fire in my gut.

My piss didn’t freeze up or anything as it hit the sand, but it definitely caused some steam, a testament to how frigid the Great Plateau had become.

I sensed some movement to my left and I looked there, realizing I didn’t have my sword with me.

All I saw were a few small sand dunes, nothing of interest aside from the beauty of the arid scenery.

With a couple more deep breaths in, I started to feel warmer, curious.

I hadn’t been in an environment like this before, sandy plateaus not part of the landscape of New England. There was something cinematic about my current environment, the life that had been stripped from it, its boundless desolate vastness.

I returned to Tashi, and still feeling warm, I walked toward the frozen pond and took a seat before it. I fixed my scarf around my head and dropped my hands onto my knees, focusing on the inner warmth that was circulating, ignoring the cold sand.

I started to close my eyes, but then I found the scenery so beautiful that I decided to keep them open, watching over the next forty minutes as the sun came up, its reflection spreading in chromatic arcs across the surface of the frozen pond.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Roger asked as he landed on my shoulder.

I parted the top of my robes, allowing him to shift onto my shoulder to keep warm, the tropical bird shivering even though he was wearing a scarf and a fur vest.

“It’s definitely something worth observing.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be practicing turning your power on and off?” he asked me.

“Yeah, I was, but I just got lost in the beauty of this wonderful pond, and this crazy landscape.”

“It happens. I won’t tell anyone.”

The four of us did some prostrations after Lhandon was up.

The portly monk then cast his modified Rune of Inquiry checking all of our numbers. I was about halfway to a thousand, Roger far behind me, and Lhandon between me and Tashi, who had the best numbers.

It was a slow way to cultivate karma and advance along the Path of the Divine, but it had been designed that way, so there was no instant gratification. Sure, one could do the prostrations over a couple days, but then there was the meditation series and basics that were also necessary to advance to the cultivator, Wheel with a Rusty Axle, stage.

We ate, and I was about to mention fishing again, when I realized that we really didn’t have the materials necessary to catch a fish.

If the water had been warmer, we could have potentially sent Roger in to try to nab one, but there was no telling if he actually had this capability, and fish could be finicky. Even if we had the right bait and string, there was a chance they wouldn’t bite.

As we finished up, Tashi and Roger discussed how they planned to hunt if it became necessary.

“It’ll be easy,” Roger assured us. “I’ll fly up and spot something big like a yak or a wolf. Would you eat a wolf?”

“It would depend on how hungry I was,” I told him after translating the question for Lhandon.

“Wolf meat can be excellent,” Lhandon said, “but before we eat any, we absolutely must thank the animal for providing it to us.”

“What he said. Anyway, I’ll spot it, and then I’ll come down to you, Tashi, and you can go burn it to death. That sounds terrible, but you know what I mean.”

The fire spirit nodded. “I will keep my fire concentrated around its head so you can cook the body in the way that you would like.”

“Does someone know how to gut an animal?” I asked. “Because I definitely don’t. Altan handled that stuff before.”

Lhandon looked to me and shook his head. “I only know how to prepare something small like a chicken.”

“I know how,” Tashi said, “but since I won’t be able to do it myself, I will instruct one of you. We do have a fairly decent supply of jerky and other rations, which should get us to Sarpang.”

“Then why are we having all these talks about finding food?” Roger asked.

Tashi shrugged. “It’s best to be prepared, especially as the conditions of the Great Plateau can change rapidly.”

“Fair enough.”

We started off, hoping to make it as far as we possibly could before the end of the day.

Lhandon and I took meditation breaks every hour or so, just for a few minutes to rest our legs, the sun growing hotter with each passing minute.

“What’s that ahead?” Roger asked as he rose higher into the air.

Before he could return to my shoulder, the sky darkened, grains of sand striking my face.

“Nick!” Lhandon shouted, reaching out to me, Tashi flaring up beside him.

The wind roared all around me, strong enough that it caused me to fall backward.

“Nick!”

I tried to reach out for Lhandon, but as I got back to my feet I was whipped up into the air, the weight of my backpack pushing my head forward, which sent me barreling to the ground. I smashed into a sand dune and was tossed back to my feet, running as I tried to stabilize myself.

I was blinded by the dust.

The wind screamed in my face; sand scratched against my eyes. More wind struck me in the chest, sending me back to the ground.

I pressed myself up, just as a large rock flew over my head, a rock which may have killed me had I not been in my current position.

I knew that I needed to stay here, that I needed to cover myself, to wait for the sandstorm to subside.

I practically buried my head in the sand, my hands over my crown, the occasional piece of debris striking my backpack.

The sandstorm ended as quickly as it had begun, the sky lighting back up, everything around me suddenly still.

I stood once it was safe, looking around and seeing that…

I was alone.

The sudden sandstorm had separated us, and from where I currently stood, there were no signs of life in any direction.

Panic rose in my chest as I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted Lhandon’s name. I shouted for Tashi, for Roger, until I was hoarse.

I was breathing heavily now.

We didn’t have a strategy for what we would do if something like this happened. If anything, I knew that Roger would be the one to find me, but what if he had been injured? What if he had been tossed even further than I had been?

I decided to stay put.

Walking in any direction would disorient me even more, and to make myself more visible, I unsheathed my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, holding it in the air.

I knew this wouldn’t work so well during the daytime, but if the clouds came in front of the sun, or I was stuck here until night…

I took a deep breath in.

“I sure hope that isn’t the case,” I said under my breath.

I stayed like this for a good hour, switching hands, holding my Flaming Thunderbolt above me, trying to stay focused on being as visible a target as possible.

It was starting to get even hotter; I was starting to get scared.

Chapter Twenty-One: Demons on the Plateau

What felt like another hour passed.

The sun was bearing down on me now, and even though I had the hood up on my robe, I was unable to keep the blistering orb off my face. The only thing I’d seen over the last hour was a pair of vultures.

They circled once, realized I was very much still alive, and moved on.

I had lost one of my gourds of water somewhere in the sandstorm, but the one still clipped to my bag was intact, the water almost completely melted, ice cold.

As thirsty as I was, I knew not to finish it.

“Come on, come on,” I said, as I scanned the horizon again, hoping to see Lhandon, Tashi, Roger, anyone.

I moved to the top of one of the dunes, which didn’t give me much of a vantage point, especially as my ankles were now half sunk in the hot sand.

I tried calling for my friends again and again, all to no avail.

And even though it was scorching hot, what worried me most was what would happen when night came. While I was getting better at generating an inner warmth, I didn’t know if I was strong enough to make it through a night on the Great Plateau...

Maybe a caravan would come along, or perhaps I would be able to follow an animal to a body of water, but there really was no telling at this point.

I felt entirely alone, lost in an inhospitable environment, panic rising in my chest again.

Another twenty or thirty minutes passed, the sun hotter than it had ever been.

I knew I needed to save my water, but my lips were starting to chap, my throat dry from calling out for my friends.

A breeze picked up and I turned left to see…

An image of a man started to take shape. It was only when he grew closer to me that I realized who he was.

I was looking at myself.

The man wore similar robes to me, had the exact same face, the same height, everything.

He was me, and it made absolutely no sense, how could I have a double?

I started to take a step back and ended up falling, my heavy pack pulling me backward and down the dune that I had been standing on.

“You’re hallucinating.” I jammed my fingers into my temples and rubbed them. “Get it together, Nick.”

I focused on my breath for a moment, trying to wash the image away from my mind.

“You’re hallucinating,” I whispered.

I sat up and wiped the sand off my face, wincing at the sun as I hobbled back to my feet. I cursed when I saw that some of the water had spilled out of my gourd, realizing that I was almost out.

I instinctively dropped my hand to my waist to see that…

My sword…

I let out a sigh of utter relief once I found my sheathed Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom sticking out of the sand. I went for my blade, and as I did, my double stepped in front of me, which caused me to fall back to the ground.

I looked up, my doppelgänger’s form wavering.

“You can’t be real,” I told him, the man semi-translucent. “I’m not dead.”

Or was I?

How would I even know if I had died or not? How did anyone truly know?

Once I was up again, I drew my blade from its sheath, pointing it at my double.

“Not another step,” I told the spitting image of myself.

My double merely looked down at the fiery blade and back to me.

He then took a few steps forward, the blade passing through his chest and out his back.

“Okay, I get it,” I said as I stepped away, sheathing my Flaming Thunderbolt.

My double moved past me. Once he was about ten feet away, he turned to me, motioning for me to follow him.

“You’re going to take me to my friends?” I asked him.

He merely motioned for me to follow him again.

“Okay,” I finally told him, “I’ll follow you.”

Even though I knew it couldn’t do anything to him, I kept my hand on the hilt of my blade, trying to walk in a way as to shield my face from the sun.

I saw that my knuckles were now red, and I knew that blisters would soon follow.

I could heal up from those, and I wondered at that moment if healing would somehow help with my dehydration, and if this went on for too long, starvation.

I really didn’t want to find out.

The two of us walked in silence, no signs of life whatsoever, my double occasionally stopping to allow me to catch up.

My armpits and brow were drenched in sweat, yet my feet were cold, even though I was wearing boots. The sun was terrifyingly bright now, preventing me from even looking up in the sky to see if Roger had spotted me.

All I could do was continue forward, hoping that my double wasn’t a trick of the mind leading me to my inevitable death.

At some point during our journey, I had to smirk, realizing that I had gone from rooming with an amazing snow lioness to trekking across an endless desert following what very well may have been a death hallucination.

Perhaps that would be the end of my story, perhaps I would die realizing I should have stayed in Dornod.

My smirk slowly morphed to a frown.

I really hoped that wasn’t the case.

I saw a sparkle in the distance, and once I realized it was a pond, I started to walk faster, licking my lips, wanting nothing more than to quench my extreme thirst.

I ripped my pack off as we neared the pond. I kneeled down by the edge of the water, scooping the cool liquid into my mouth.

Eventually, I used my gourd, filling it up and chugging it back. I kept drinking until I could drink no more, then I waited for a moment, and drank some more.

After I’d had enough, I filled the gourd and poured the water over my head, letting out a sigh of relief as the cold water trickled down my neck. I did this again, smiling, more of the water trickling down my back.

“I’m going in,” I told my double, who just stood there with his arms at his side, staring at me.

Shielding my eyes, I glanced up at the sun, deciding against actually going in the water.

Maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

I was just about to drain my gourd again when I heard something overhead.

The voice grew louder, “Nick!”

My heart leaped into my throat. “Roger?”

Rather than say anything I simply raised a single fist into the air, as if I were the victor, as if I’d pulled this off on my own.

Roger landed, an excited look on his face. “We’ve been searching for you!”

“I was lost…”

“You found water too!” Roger dipped his beak in. “Okay, okay, this is good. This is fucking great! I will lead Tashi and Lhandon here, just stay put.”

“You didn’t see someone else with me, did you?” I asked, turning back to where my double had just been standing, the man now gone.

“Someone else? Was there someone following you?”

“Not someone…” I shook my head. “Never mind. Just bring Lhandon here. I will explain everything.”

Lhandon shook his head, seemingly unable to process what I’d just told him. He too had his hood over his dome, a bit of shadow cast on his eyes, the portly monk even sweatier than I was. “So you are saying that your double led you here?”

I nodded. “I mean, unless it was a hallucination, but…”

I recalled the man approaching my sword, the flaming blade coming out the other end.

“It was real,” I said with finality, “it definitely wasn’t a hallucination. I’ve had hallucinations before, the most recent one being while I was trying to escape Nagchu. It was nothing like this.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Tashi asked.

“Nothing. He just waited for me to follow him, so I did.”

“I really wish Jigme were here. We could ask him if he’d ever heard of anything like this before,” Lhandon said. “Regardless, we can’t discount what you witnessed, and while I don’t have an answer for you now, Nick, I do believe what you saw was real. It just makes no sense as to why your double would be here. From all I know, it’s impossible to have a double if you are still alive.”

“For a moment I thought I was dead,” I admitted.

“I would have too,” said Roger, who was blocking the sun with his feathers.

“Well, you are very much alive, and it is a good thing,” Lhandon said. He drank another gourd of water, and filled the one on his pack. Tashi made another gourd for me. After it was cooled off, I filled this one up too, making sure we had plenty of water.

“Now, we need to figure out which direction we’re going,” Lhandon said. “The sandstorm turned us around, and then there was the fact that you were gone…”

“We’re heading this way,” Roger said, angling his beak to the northwest quadrant of the pond.

“I concur,” Tashi added. “We were heading in that direction yesterday, the sun setting over there,” he said, gesturing toward the dunes in the distance.

“You two would know better than I,” Lhandon said humbly. “Lead the way.”

We walked, and as we did, we discussed how we would address the next sandstorm, if one came around.

“What I ended up doing in the end was dropping to the ground, my hands over my head,” I told them. “Perhaps we should do that, you and me together.”

“Not a bad idea,” Lhandon said. “I wish someone would have mentioned the sandstorms; we could have gotten a rope back in Dornod to connect our waists together, just to be safe.”

“Maybe it’s a new phenomenon,” Tashi said. “When I crossed the Great Plateau a thousand years ago, we didn’t encounter any such storms, nor did we hear about anyone encountering them.”

“I cannot tell you guys how ready I am to be closer to the ocean again,” Roger grumbled. “I’m a sea bird at heart.”

“You mean a seagull?” I asked him.

Roger cackled. “Hell no. I’m not as needy as a seagull.”

Roger, now out of his fur vest, lifted off my shoulder and rose higher in the air, circling above us a few times before coming back down. “We have company,” he said, a tenseness behind his voice now.

“What kind of company?” Tashi asked.

“There’s a caravan heading our way. How should we do this?”

“A caravan,” I translated for Lhandon.

“Can we go around them?” Lhandon asked.

Roger shook his head. “They will surely see us; the sand ends just ahead, and it’s flat for a little while.”

“We can’t go around them; we should just be ready to engage,” I said, nodding at Tashi, who flared up, and reduced his size until he was just a few inches tall, easily able to float behind me or beside me, our secret weapon.

We continued walking, my eyes on the horizon, my hand near the hilt of my blade.

The caravan eventually came into view, heat waves making their forms hard to pick out at first. They had yaks carrying large loads covered by canvas sacks and as we approached them, I counted six animals and twelve merchants, at least I assumed they were merchants.

The men were covered from head to toe in fabric, their eyes barely visible. Their heads were wrapped too, and the only identifying mark on them was a red band that cycled through their turbans.

They stopped, their leader exchanging glances with another man to the left of the group. He lowered his hand on the hilt of his weapon, and took a step toward us.

“No need for that, gentlemen,” Lhandon said as he came forward as well, showing both his palms. “We’re simply making our way to Sarpang.”

“What for?” the man in the turban asked, something foreign about his accent.

I hadn’t really paid too much attention to the accents here in the Kingdom of Lhasa, and most of them weren’t much different than mine aside from the way they pronounced “Massachusetts,” but this man definitely had an accident.

“We are traveling to the Island Kingdom of Jonang,” Lhandon said.

“Why doesn’t the monk tell him our birthdays too?” Roger asked, the tropical bird now perched on my shoulder again. “Look, I get the diplomatic approach, but you have a fire sword, and we have Tashi here...”

“There’s no sense in escalating things,” Tashi said.

Lhandon bowed to the man, and the man bowed back, lowering his hand from his weapon. He returned to his caravan and they moved on, letting us pass.

“That’s it?” I asked Lhandon. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. I believe he saw in my eyes that I wasn’t planning to rob him, and perhaps he realized that…” Lhandon smiled. “I’m not really even capable of doing that.”

Roger cackled. “Your weakness comes in handy!”

I stopped and looked back at the caravan, watching them pass, one of their yaks groaning under the weight of its cargo. The man at the back of the caravan whipped the yak with a long switch, the creature letting out a grunt before they continued on.

I went for my gourd of water and took a long drag from it, happy to be able to drink water freely again. I realized at that moment that I was hungry, that I hadn’t eaten since getting lost. After mentioning this, Lhandon suggested that we eat as we walked, rather than take a rest.

“The faster we get to somewhere that perhaps has shade, or offers us water, the easier it will be for us,” he said, using his hand to shield his face from the sun.

“There’s no shade,” Roger said as we continued on.

“We don’t know that just yet,” Tashi said. “If I recall, there are some strange things out on the Great Plateau, including large rock formations and graves large enough to cast a shadow that would easily cool the both of you. Perhaps we will find one of those.”

“Perhaps,” I said as we continued on.

We walked for another several hours until the sun was coming down, the exposed parts of my skin now blistering.

I was happy as hell when Roger returned from one of the scouting missions, letting us know that he’d found a small oasis, one that he claimed was fed by an underground spring. As we approached, I saw the surface of the water bubbling, which is what I assumed he was referring to.

I splashed some of the water onto my face only to find that it was piping hot, not at all helping my sunburn.

Still, it was water, and it would cool off in the night.

“Let’s create a tent,” I said, glancing around the area and noticing that there were a few rocks lying around the water, a couple of them the size of treasure chests.

Lhandon helped me stack them, and I placed my pack on top, Lhandon’s as well, draping the blanket from the pack down to the ground and using a rock to keep the fabric taut, which created a bit of shelter for us.

Lhandon and I happily got together beneath the shelter. To deal with what the sun had done to our skin, I cast Healing Hand, healing Lhandon first, and then myself.

“I cannot wait until the sun is down,” he said, still with his cheerful demeanor. “I’ve never so looked forward to an evening in my life.”

Lhandon and I ate some of the dried meat and fruit as we looked out at the water of the small pond. The sun was down, the sky purple with a few tangerine streaks across it.

Behind us, Tashi was already getting ready to be our nightly fire, Roger staying as close to the spirit as he could.

The temperature had already started to drop, Lhandon and I both prepared with our blankets covering our bodies, and our scarves wrapped around our heads.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked him after a long spell of silence.

“I’m thinking about how I will begin the search for the Exonerated One once we arrive at the Island Kingdom,” Lhandon said.

“Is the kingdom that big?”

“Much smaller than Lhasa, yet still fairly large. But this is just from things that I’ve read, I haven’t actually seen it myself. Perhaps some of the men on the ship that we take will know more about it.”

“And how are you going to know when you find his reincarnation? I’m sorry, we haven’t really been over this part of it.”

“That’s a good question.” He reached his hand into the front of his robes. “Do you remember him leaving this behind?” Lhandon showed me a small black pearl.

My thoughts jumped back to when we had to dispose of all the bodies at the monastery after the treasure hunters killed them. The pearl was left behind in the Exonerated One’s ashes.

“So you’re just going to go around showing that to people?”

Lhandon shook his head. “I have my ways of finding him, and once I do, I will have to test him with this pearl. I will also look for other signs. He had a tattoo on his wrist, a number given to him in prison, and that will be one thing I look for, to see if there’s something that resembles it on his new body.”

“And then what? We aren’t taking this baby with us, are we?”

“Most definitely not,” Lhandon said, chuckling. “We will explain to the parents what has happened, and show them the evidence, and once the boy is old enough, he will join the monastery.”

“You think the parents will just go along with that?”

“I’m certain they will. First, there are the karmic reasons for accepting this, and then there is the monetary gain as well.”

I smirked at the portly monk. “You have money stashed away in that robe of yours?”

“No, but I have promissory notes in the bag. Regardless, the family will benefit from the donations that come to the monastery once the Exonerated One continues his role. I am not so known over Lhasa, as you can clearly see, but he was quite well known, and as soon as it is discovered that the Exonerated One will be returning, people will start donating money and other things, including animals and land. The family will benefit from this, and once he’s older, he can use those funds to rebuild his monastery.”

“You aren’t going to rebuild in the same place?”

Lhandon stared out at the water for a moment, biting his lip. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so. I believe it is important to build my monastery closer to my hometown, to Bamda. There is a lot of corruption there, and the city would benefit from having a good monastery nearby. Once the Exonerated One is old enough, he can work on spreading the Path of the Divine toward the southwest, and I will focus on the northwest, and hopefully, we will meet in the middle. I do believe that what we are doing here, while it may take some time, has the power to change lives. Now, I am not foolish enough to think that this change is going to happen overnight, but I do believe that gradual change will come, and this will snowball into even more change. But as you know, I can be a little too optimistic at times.”

“It’s one of your best qualities,” I told him.

We returned to Tashi once it got colder, Roger whistling with happiness when he saw that I was coming with the blanket.

“How long are you going to keep me out here?” he asked, his voice quivering. “I need to get under that blanket!”

“Relax,” I told him as I set up the place where I was going to sleep, Roger already tucking himself under the blanket.

I had a feeling it was going to be extra cold tonight, so I put on an additional robe, one of the several sets that we had. Lhandon did the same thing, and once we were good and bundled up, he meditated as usual before nodding off.

At first, I thought the voice whispering to me was coming from a dream, but then I realized it was Tashi, and that several hours had passed. Tashi brought his fiery hand closer and closer to my face in an attempt to wake me up.

“What is it?” I whispered to him.

“There’s a caravan coming,” he said, now reducing his size.

“They are definitely going to see us.”

“Yes, and you should be ready.”

“Got it,” I said as I rolled out of the blanket, Roger mumbling something to me.

I crept over to Lhandon and woke him, the monk gasping, “It’s cold!”

“Someone’s coming; we need to be ready.”

Lhandon nodded.

Sure enough, a caravan was slowly moving in our direction, the yaks swaying left and right, the merchants barely visible aside from a man carrying a lantern at the front with a purple tinge to the light.

Something felt off, and it was when the caravan neared us, when Lhandon started to raise his hand to greet them, that the caravan morphed into inky black smoke, the smoke barreling toward us.

Lhandon was knocked aside; Tashi lifted a towering wall of flames, revealing two black spirits with ghastly faces, their forms swirling all around him.

They crashed into Tashi, one of them slamming him into the sand.

I saw the blanket I’d been under kick up, Roger trying to get out of it.

“Shit!” I yelled out as I drew my Flaming Thunderbolt, charging at the first black form I could make out.

My weapon went right through it, and for my efforts I was thrown into one of the rocks we’d used for shelter earlier, my back cracking, everything flashing red for a moment.

Bah-Mo…

I didn’t know if someone had whispered it to me, or the thought was just at the back of my mind and the collision with the rock had caused me to remember it, but I recalled Jigme saying that my avatar would be able to fight a spirit, and if there was ever a chance to use him…

Tashi cried out again as I traced up the rune, the monkey with his two scimitars slowly taking shape.

“Go… get them…” I said, pointing to the fight, realizing that the injury to my back was more severe than I originally anticipated.

Bah-Mo shook both arms out, looked over his shoulder at me, and flipped into action.

He met the first spirit and drove both of his scimitars into the top of the spirit’s back.

He used his blades to guide the dark spirit to the ground, where he then crossed his weapons like a pair of scissors and sliced the demon’s head off, a purple energy spilling out of the space where its neck should have been, a ghastly cry ringing out the air.

Bah-Mo flourished both his blades, crouching as he approached the next spirit.

The monkey charged the demon, bringing both blades back as he swung at the dark spirit. The demon narrowly avoided Bah-Mo’s first attack.

The monkey landed and clinked both blades together, his eyes locked on his opponent.

The demon spirit tilted what I assumed was its head as it tried to figure out what to do about Bah-Mo. Eventually, it drew a black ax; I could see the ripple of armor forming on its body as Bah-Mo engaged the inky black demon, their forms illuminated by Tashi’s flames.

Their weapons met again and again. Eventually, Bah-Mo wrapped his tail around the spirit’s arm, and used it to flip around to its back.

The monkey drove both of his blades into its shoulders, leading the spirit to the ground. Bah-Mo continued slicing and dicing, pulling his blades in and out of the demon’s back with a happy look on his face, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as he stabbed the spirit to death.

The demon let out one more gasp and started to fade away.

Bah-Mo stood and bowed at me, his form sinking into the sand until he was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Thieves and Meditations

We eventually settled back under our blankets, Tashi keeping us warm, none of us able to sleep.

“I guess this is something we have to be prepared for going forward,” Lhandon said after a long pause.

“And you really don’t think that is just something that just happens out here, considering we are in the middle of nowhere?”

“No, they were from the Underworld,” Tashi said. “I recognize demons like that. And if I were to guess, I would say they were somehow related to the man that attacked us after our escape from Nagchu.”

“We really do have enemies from all sides now, don’t we?” I asked.

“Seems about right,” said Roger, his voice partially muffled due to the fact he was under the blanket. “I only wish I could have seen your monkey friend whip their asses. But no, like an idiot, I got stuck in this blanket, and trying to get out of it only made it worse.”

I could still feel the pain in my lower back, but since nothing was broken, since it was only bruised, I decided not to heal it for the time being, considering that a new day was upon us and I would need to heal our sunburns later.

It was worth suffering.

The three of us never could get back to sleep, and for all I knew Tashi didn’t sleep at all.

The sun eventually started to come up which was just about the time that Lhandon announced we should meditate, do some prostrations, eat, and be on our merry way.

Both of us drank as much water as we could after our breakfast of dried meat and berries. Tashi melted the ice on top of the small pond; Lhandon and I dipped our gourds in and filled them with cold water.

Figuring it couldn’t hurt, we had Tashi make two additional gourds, which we filled and attached to our bags so we each had three.

Once we were ready, Roger pointed us in the right direction, and we started walking.

For a while, we were quiet, but then Lhandon started humming a mantra, Tashi joining along.

I focused on their mantra until I zoned out, practically floating forward now as we tried to cross this endless expanse.

The sun grew hotter with each passing hour.

I wanted to look away from it, but there really wasn’t a way for me to avoid it unless I walked sideways or at an angle. It didn’t help that the cracked soil beneath us was white, any sand we saw white and sparkly as well, reflecting the blistering orb in the sky.

Another hour passed, and it was about this time that Roger noticed something on the trail ahead of us.

“It’s a person,” Roger said as he landed on my shoulder.

“A person? Out here?” I asked him.

“He seems like he’s in trouble, like he’s hurt.”

“Then we should help,” Lhandon said, taking the lead.

“Please be wary, Exalted One,” Tashi called after him.

Lhandon took a couple steps closer to the man. “Are you okay?” he called out.

The man was definitely pushing seventy or eighty years old, most of his body covered in rags, his stoop making it look like he was bending over to touch his feet. He had a white beard that jutted out from some of the folds in a scarf, beady eyes, and the skin that I could see was the color of mahogany, leathered by the sun.

“A monk!” he said, bringing his hand to his heart. “I thought I would never find someone like you out here, someone that could help me.” The man fell to one knee. “I’m sorry,” he said as he tried to use his cane to push himself back to his feet.

“How did you get out here?” Lhandon started asking.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Roger said, now perched on my shoulder. “Hand me my blade.”

I reached down to my boot and unsheathed the knife, handing it to Roger.

From there I lowered my hand on the hilt of my own weapon, ready for anything. I couldn’t hear Lhandon now; all I could do was watch his body language, and try to interpret what they were talking about.

I glanced at Tashi and nodded, the fire spirit lowering in size until he was no longer visible.

I didn’t know if the old man had seen him or not, considering the distance between us, but just in case…

Lhandon shuffled back over to us. “He says he lives around here, and he was out for a walk and got lost. He’s pretty sure he knows the way now though, and he wants to feed us for our troubles.”

“I think we should just continue on our way,” I told him after looking over at the guy.

“I don’t know, he’s been pretty hospitable, and he may know something about the Great Plateau that we don’t know.”

“Not many people live out here,” Tashi said, his form just a few inches tall. “Perhaps he is one of the herders that makes money selling food to the caravans, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be lost…”

“Something is off,” I told Lhandon again.

“Agreed,” Roger added.

“He seemed nice,” the monk said, looking back to the man just as he waved at us.

“We should probably continue on. If he’s lost, he will find his way.”

“We have to think of the karmic repercussions of what we are about to do,” Lhandon told Tashi. “If we help him, that is good. If we help him and it is a trap, we will defend ourselves, and that is bad for him, but no longer our karma. If we don’t help him and he dies out here, it is bad for us. We have to think of these things now, especially with what we are trying to do here in Lhasa.”

“I’m ready to stab someone if I have to,” Roger chirped. “We have a fire spirit, and you got a fire sword, along with a couple other things that’ll help us out. I’m not too worried. Let’s go with what Lhandon is saying.”

“Okay,” I said as I turned to the elderly man. “Tashi?”

“If the Exalted One prefers it, then yes.”

We joined the elderly man, Tashi keeping a low profile on my opposite shoulder.

“That’s a mighty fine bird you have there,” the elderly man said. His accent was similar to the guy from the caravan that we’d run into a day earlier, a bit of an edge to it, unlike the other voices I’d heard in Lhasa. “We don’t see many birds out here aside from vultures. I really am blessed, you know? My mind hasn’t been as sharp as it used to be, and to find a kind group such as yours to escort me.”

“It is our pleasure,” Lhandon told him as we came to a path surrounded by sand dunes.

“Not much further from here,” he said shuffling along the path. “Just up here. I should be able to find my way back from there.”

The sand dunes moved, the sand tumbling away. Men covered in rags burst out, all of them wielding blades.

The old man pulled the blade from his cane. He ripped the front of the scarf off, revealing that he wasn’t an old man after all, that he was rather young, that he’d been wearing a disguise all along.

I almost felt sorry for them.

Even as Lhandon tried to talk them down, the monk lifting both his hands and warning them against fighting us, I cast Gyal-Ma, which would allow me to absorb three strikes.

I unsheathed my blade and flourished it once, the flames licking off the metal.

Roger lifted into the air, and Tashi stayed behind me, our constant secret weapon.

“Last chance,” I told the group of thieves.

Two of the men charged me.

I addressed the first one, our blades meeting, his sword immediately igniting as the flames spread down to his hand. He tossed his blade aside and jumped for me, my natural instinct to bring my knee into his stomach and my free elbow onto his back, which sent him straight to the ground.

The second man swung his blade at me, his strike going wide. I came down hard, cutting through his arm, his wound instantly cauterized.

He cried out in pain as the other thieves exchanged glances, gathered their courage, and charged me.

Tashi rose into the air, a crazed look on his face as flames exploded out of his form, catching four of the six men left standing on fire.

Roger dove down onto one of the other men who was just starting to back away, the bird burying his dagger in the man’s back.

I finished off the guy that was on the ground by driving my sword into his chest. I returned my focus to the man whose arm I’d taken, finishing him off as well.

This left only one thief, who just so happened to be the guy that had led us into the trap.

“Please, spare me,” he said, horror on his face as he took in what we had done to his fellow thieves.

Lhandon approached him, calmly telling him to lower his blade.

“You can go, the fight is over.”

“Over? You killed everyone I know!” the man screamed, spit flying out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry for what has transpired here,” Lhandon said firmly. “We were left with three options when we encountered you: One, we help you and you turn out to be telling the truth, offering us hospitality. Two, we help you, and you turn on us. And three, we don’t help you and you die. Unfortunately, this is the way of our world. It is not something that I like, and it is something that I would hope to change one day. So we’re letting you go. If you leave now, we won’t pursue you, nor will we retaliate. Please take what you need from the other thieves and if you respect them, please bury them, or do whatever it is that thieves do here on the Great Plateau when their companions pass.”

“You’re letting me go?” the young man asked, slowly starting to lower his weapon.

“Against my better judgment, yes.” Lhandon offered him a firm smile even though there were bodies still burning to Lhandon’s left, and one of the men, the one Roger had stabbed, was still twitching.

“What’s your name?” the man asked still looking up at Lhandon with his beady eyes.

“Lhandon, the Exalted One.”

“My name is Tengis,” he said, finally sheathing his weapon.

“So that is your choice?”

Tengis nodded, an indecipherable look on his face. “Yes, th-thank you.”

“I trust that you’ll handle their bodies as well? I’m able to perform a monk’s burial, if you would prefer that.”

“No,” Tengis finally said, “they wouldn’t want that. Thank you for sparing my life.”

“I want you to begin by visualizing this ‘switch,’ as you call it.”

Lhandon sat in front of me, the light from Tashi’s fire casting shadows across his face. Roger was already tucked under the blanket, the bird’s form shivering.

It was night now, our journey through the Great Plateau still showing no signs of ending. We hadn’t been able to find water, so we were making do with what we had, hoping to find a water supply in the morning. Both of our sunburns were gone courtesy of my healing power, and we had eaten too, the temperature quickly dropping.

I took a deep breath in, imagining the air circulating all the way to the back of my head, and down to my stomach from there. I let it out slowly, and did the same thing again, repeating the cycle until I was in a trance-like space.

“Let my voice guide you, Nick,” Lhandon said. “You’ve already done this before, so what we are trying to do now is to train you to turn it on faster, so that you are in control of your ability. Breathe over the next few minutes, and I will check back in soon.”

I did as he instructed, ignoring the sound of my own breath humming inside my skull. I could suddenly hear my heartbeat, and after observing it, I labeled it and moved on. I continued to drill down, imagining my eyes spiraling toward an apex at the center of my forehead.

I saw the switch again, and I reached out to it.

I blinked my eyes open, first noticing that Tashi’s flames were frozen, that Lhandon was just starting to take a breath in.

Keeping my eyes open, I visualized the switch floating before me.

It took a moment, but eventually the switch pixelated into existence. I kept my focus on my breath as I mentally reached out and touched it.

Tashi’s flames started flickering again, Roger moving under his blanket, Lhandon breathing softly, a smile forming on his face.

“Well?”

Rather than answer, I visualized the switch again, keeping my eyes open and mentally pressing it.

Everything froze for a second time.

Not knowing how long it would last, I stood, carefully walking in a circle around my friends, stopping at a spot on the other side of Tashi. I didn’t have to activate the switch this time, everything just came back to life all at once.

Lhandon turned me. “You’re doing it, Nick!”

I winced, feeling a sudden pain at the back of my head. I brought my hand to the spot, rubbing it for a moment.

“Do you think you can do it again?”

“I can try,” I said, taking a seat before him. I started breathing deeply, again visualizing the switch with my eyes open.

I mentally reached out and…

Everything froze again, but this time my head started pounding, and it wasn’t more than a few seconds before everything returned to its normal pace.

I brought my hands to my temples, massaging them as Lhandon looked me over. “That much pain, huh?”

“It hasn’t done that before,” I told him. I felt the urge to lay down, which I did, the sand beneath me cool to the touch. It was amazing how quickly the temperature had shifted. I looked up at Lhandon. “Sorry, I just felt like resting for a moment.”

“No, it’s okay, and I think this is something to be expected. You’re trying to control a power that allows you to essentially do anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your power gives you the illusion of speed, it allows you to save someone by slowing whatever is about to kill them, it allows you to pause a situation so you can think it over. Those are just a few of the examples that come to mind. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to utilize it. My point is, I don’t know what power your other two friends possess, or if the one who fell into the Sea of Lhasa is alive. But your power is likely the strongest. Even if Bobby is very smart, and Evan has incredible aim, you can still stop time. And I wonder if there are extensions of this power, once you master controlling it. Can you reverse time, for example?” He shook his head. “The possibilities are endless. But don’t listen to me, I am but a monk pondering the nature of reality. I guess that’s what monks traditionally do, right?”

I smirked. “I don’t know; you are the first monk that I’ve ever been friends with.”

“And you are the first person from Massachusetts that I have ever been friends with,” Lhandon said. “Speaking of which, do you miss your world? You don’t talk about it very often, at least not anymore.”

I laid on my back, looking up at the stars.

There were hundreds of them, and while I was never much into astronomy, I could tell that they were arranged differently than the stars back home.

“I don’t know the answer to that question,” I finally told him. “Or rather, I wish I had a better answer for you. We’re generally so engaged with things here that I don’t think about it much.”

“What about your parents? I’m assuming you have parents.”

“I do; they live in Florida.”

“Florida?” Lhandon pondered this word for a moment. “The names of the places in your world are so interesting to me. Do you have others?”

“You mean other state names?”

“Sure, if that’s what you call them.”

“Um, so I guess some of them have strange-sounding names if you really think about it. Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Wyoming. I could go on.”

“Please, do.”

“Tennessee, Hawaii, Alaska, Minnesota, Mississippi.”

“Minnesota, that sounds like a pretty name for a girl. Mississippi sounds like someone speaking too quickly and missing a word in whatever they’re trying to say.”

“I never thought of it that way,” I told him.

“I wonder what it would be like if I visited your world. What do you think I would discover?”

I imagined Lhandon walking through Times Square, the advertisements all around him, the buildings stretching up to the sky, life stacked on top of life. I thought of him in a car, driving through the countryside of Maine, staring out the window, marveling at the vehicle’s speed. I pictured him on a train in Boston, the doors opening and people from all walks of life filing in. I then imagined him on an airplane, flying from one coast to the other.

“I really don’t know how you would react, but I can tell you this, there’s a lot less magic in our world. So that may disappoint you.”

“Is there? Or did this magic just never touch your life?”

I considered this for a moment, the light from Tashi’s flames causing shadows to advance on the sand. “I guess I really don’t know the answer to that question. Perhaps if you came to my world, you would be the one to find the magic. Perhaps it is there somewhere, just outside of my realm of comfort and familiarity. Does that make sense?”

“It makes total sense,” Lhandon said. “Come, I believe it is time that we retire for the evening. If we can make it to Sarpang tomorrow, we won’t have to sleep under the stars for another night—a great goal, if you ask me. Not that I mind being in nature, it’s only that I’m really working on the Path of the Divine at the moment, and while this has given me plenty of time for contemplation, I need to be able to write things down, to continue the restructuring. But maybe I’m being selfish in saying that, maybe I should just enjoy what we have here.”

“Severe sunburns and the possibility of being robbed or attacked at every corner by thieves and demons?” I chuckled. “I’m with you. The sooner we are out of the Great Plateau, the better.”

Chapter Twenty-Three: Flatulence of a Dragon

I was glad to wake up in the morning, the ground cold but my body warm.

“Hopefully, we will reach there today,” Tashi said, once he noticed I was awake. “If not today, then tomorrow. But soon. It can’t be much longer now.”

I took a look around, noticing that we weren’t far from the spot where the sand ended, where it turned into rock.

Lhandon and I each had a gourd and a half of water left, which really wasn’t a lot considering the heat of the day. Hopefully, the rocky terrain we were about to shift to would provide us with liquid nourishment.

Once Lhandon was up, we did a quick meditation and ate some dried meat, ready to get started.

As we walked, Roger occasionally took to the air, letting us know that the terrain really was changing, that he would have to fly even higher to get a better view. Eventually, he located a canyon that cut through the rocky hills, one that would bring us to higher ground without forcing us to scale the rock face.

I felt exuberant, ready to be done with the Great Plateau and begin the next leg of our journey.

It had been Roger that had told us of the rumors going around the bird community about an outsider who had appeared on the Island Kingdom of Jonang, most likely Hugo. And with Lhandon’s assumption that the Exonerated One’s reincarnation would be there, it made sense to go there next.

As we walked, I recalled that the five Immortals established the kingdoms of this world, Thupten the Corrupted founding the Kingdom of Lhasa;  Misake the Whisperer establishing the Kingdom of Rinpunga; Padme Lung the Virtuous, the Kingdom of Paro; Kenzo the Written, the Island Kingdom of Tsirang; and Ganbold the Strong establishing the Island Kingdom of Jonang.

I was interested to see how different the new kingdom would be, what the people would be like, and which path the citizens predominantly practiced. It would also be interesting to change environments, from one harsh climate to another.

We started our way up a sloped pass at the same time the sun reached its apex in the sky, both Lhandon and I sweating profusely.

“Any sign of water?” Lhandon asked as he finished what was left in one of his gourds.

“I’ll make another check,” Roger said, lifting up into the air.

“He’s checking again,” Lhandon translated.

“You’re getting better,” I told him with a smile.

Eventually, Roger came back down, landing on the ground before us. He hopped around, flapping his wings for a moment.

“What is it?”

“I saw a waterfall, just about…” he considered the distance. “Maybe a thirty-minute walk from here? You can fill up there.”

“Good call,” I told him as we took the path that led to the waterfall Roger had seen.

There were a few peaks now, the waterfall likely caused by their snowfall.

I was amazed at how far we had come, especially when I turned back to see the flatness of the Great Plateau with its epic sand dunes.

Just two days ago, I couldn’t see these mountains, leaving me to believe that we had been walking in an uphill slant the entire time, albeit a very gradual one.

We came to the waterfall in the shade of a great cliff and I practically dove in.

I drank as much as I could, Lhandon doing the same and Roger also drinking his fair share. We filled our gourds, and were just about to continue along the pass when Tashi moved through the waterfall and came back out, steam rising off his form as his fire reignited.

“There’s something in here,” Tashi said, excitement in his molten eyes. “Call it the treasure hunter in me, but I had the feeling I should check behind the waterfall. I believe there’s something behind there that you will want to see, Exalted One.”

“Auspicious.” Lhandon waded into the water until he reached the fall. He pulled himself up onto a ledge, the monk now drenched. I did the same. Roger simply flew through the water, Tashi following after him, steam rising off the fire spirit’s form yet again.

“Oh my,” Lhandon said as his eyes fell upon the entrance to a cave, and a series of characters etched into the wall. The space was small and continually spritzed by the mist from the waterfall.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Ahem. Never knowing any physical discomfort, hoping to become an Immortal in colored robes, sending your disciples to the Underworld, I feel sad to set eyes upon you,” he read. “Be on your way, Ink in the Sea! Go! Give your discourses and initiations, gather around your vow violators, sew your seeds of disaster, cultivate your plants of delusion, grow your shoots of passion, ripen your karma, carry the sins of old women, fulfill your duty to your dependents, and fill your treasure houses with riches.”

“Yeah, I’m not following,” I started to say.

“That’s not all of it,” Lhandon said, clearing his throat. “Hereby a cave without a door or pillar, sits Drukpa Kunley with the dirty mouth, who babbles nonsense wherever he is. I feel great pity for you! Go! Wander the world without purpose; destroy the faith of the people you meet; carry your wealth on your penis head; offer your secret substance to wars; arouse the dogs with your door knocking; and break the ribs of the eldest birches; pick your nits and toss them like stones behind you; break the hip bones of your women; and sun-bathe wherever you wish!”

“You lost me at penis head,” Roger said with a cackle.

“For some reason, that’s not helping me better understand what I’m looking at here,” I told Lhandon.

“It can’t be,” Lhandon glanced at Tashi. “Do you know who this is? Are you familiar with Drukpa Kunley?”

Tashi shook his head.

“Yes, perhaps he was after your time. Drukpa is possibly the most famous nalropa, divine madman, who ever lived in the Kingdom of Lhasa. And gentlemen, what we have just found here is his burial site.”

“So your plan is to just go in there?” Roger asked. “You aren’t worried it’s a trap or something?”

“He wants to know if we are going in there,” I told Lhandon.

“Why, of course we are! But first, we should change to our cleanest robes. It is important not to desecrate the site by going inside in our soiled, wet robes.”

“My robes aren’t soiled,” I told Lhandon, even though I was already in the process of taking my bag off to change clothing.

“You should clean your feathers too,” Tashi suggested to Roger.

“Okay, Campfire, how about you worry about keeping your flames clean, and I’ll worry about keeping my feathers perfectly ruffled,” Roger said. “Also, Nick, I need help getting out of my fur vest. It’s warmer now, and I definitely don’t want to wear this in there.”

“Sure,” I told him. “Just let me finish changing robes first.”

Once I was changed, I left my white robes hanging from a rock to dry, Lhandon doing the same.

I helped Roger out of his fur vest, the sound of the waterfall all around us, and I was just about to leave it on the rocks when he told me just to put it in my bag instead, that he didn’t care if it was wet.

“As you wish,” I told the bird as I turned back to Lhandon. “And you’re sure this is safe?”

“I don’t know if it’s safe or not,” Lhandon admitted, “but I believe that it is something that we should do, that it will not only increase our karma, but there may be something down there that is important to our journey.”

Tashi led the way, the cave walls instantly illuminated and showing images of various sexual acts, demons consorting with mortals, threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes and then some, heads coming out of body parts, veiny penises painting the air with jism, sexy spirits with backs covered in breasts.

Roger whistled. “This looks like some of the stuff the white birds were into back in Dornod!”

“Is that why you were sore that one night?” I asked him.

“I told you that I didn’t want to talk about that night,” Roger groaned. “But to answer your question: perhaps.”

“It might look like a bunch of indecent, pornographic images,” Lhandon said, “but those that practice the Path of Divine Madness don’t see them that way; all the images have a story behind them. For example, this man having his…”

“His ass?” I asked.

“Yes, his rear end violated by a demon, this is a classic nalropa image cautioning against cheating someone for economic gain.”

“Is that what you get from that?” Roger asked. “Because I’m getting something else.”

“I agree with Roger. Is this really what you’re taking from that image?” I asked Lhandon.

“I am no expert, but I did read up on it some. Remember, I was at the Monastery of the Exonerated One for a very long time, and I was never allowed to advance, which on one hand was bad, but on the other hand was good, as I was never given much responsibility. And while you may recall that I led you to your room the first night you showed up there, that was the only thing I did that entire day, aside from helping out a bit in the kitchen, and reading the collected stories of this guy,” he said, motioning before him. “Drukpa Kunley.”

“Okay,” I told him, convinced, “what about that image?”

I pointed to an image of a woman being split in half by an invisible sword, two demons ejaculating at her feet.

“That one is easy. This image represents dissolving the ego, only to realize that to dissolve the ego you have to stroke the ego, and stroking ego produces results, and those results are represented in the ejaculate, the seeds of a new future.”

“Color me impressed,” I told Lhandon as we came into a larger room with a ceiling carved with sexual images.

I nearly stumbled backward when I saw the skeleton sitting before us in a meditative posture, his fingers arranged in a strange way, his mouth hanging open.

“Flatulence of a Dragon,” Lhandon said, getting to his knees immediately and bringing his head to the ground, bowing. “Yes, that was what he was known as,” he said to me, still bowing.

“Well, I guess I can say that I’ve seen everything now,” Roger said as Tashi came forward, bowing in a similar gesture to Lhandon.

I did the same, feeling my heavy pack on my shoulders shift forward and nearly hit the back of my head.

Roger screeched when the skeleton moved, the three of us sitting up, Lhandon immediately whispering a mantra.

“Who dares disturb me?” the skeleton asked, dust slowly cascading off his form.

“It is I, the Exalted One,” Lhandon said, bowing again, clearly not as frightened as I was at the skeleton that was speaking to us. “We come for your blessings.”

The skeleton merely stared at Lhandon.

As it did, I slowly got to my feet, my hand coming to the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom.

I looked to Tashi to see that he, too, was on alert.

“We have come here to receive your blessings, Flatulence of a Dragon,” Lhandon said again. “We are practitioners of the Path of the Divine, and while we recognize the difference between our paths, we also recognize that they ultimately have the same goal, to reach enlightenment, to cultivate karma, and if one wishes, to separate one’s self from the cycle of rebirth.”

“Ha!” the skeleton threw its head back, its jaw slightly dislocating. “Since now I thrive on chung, once I must have been a bee; since now I am so lustful, once I must have been a cock; since now I am so angry, once I must have been a snake; since now I am so slothful, once I must have been a pig; since now I am so shameless, once I must have been a madman; since now I am such a liar, once I must have been an actor; since now my manners are so rude, once I must have been a monkey; since now I have such bloodlust, once I must have been a wolf; since now I have so tight a sphincter, once I must have been a monk; since now I enjoy cheating others, once I must have been a banker; since now I am so loquacious, once I must have been a woman; but I cannot tell you if this is really true. Consider the matter. What is your opinion?”

“Our opinion?” Lhandon asked, glancing over his shoulder at me.

“Wrong answer.”

We heard a rumbling behind us.

Rocks starting to collapse in the cavern that we had just passed through.

Tashi tried to blaze through, only to realize that we wouldn’t be able to follow him. He returned, just as the skeleton turned to dust, a burst of maniacal laughter filling the cavern, another passage at the back of the space sliding open.

I protected my head with my hands, making sure that nothing was coming down from above us. Once I was sure we were safe, I looked to the new passage that had opened.

“Are you okay?” Lhandon asked me.

“I’m fine,” I said as I moved into the new room.

“It appears that it was a trap all along.” Lhandon shook his head. “What a pity, what a true pity!”

The room that had opened up was about the size of a large closet, the ceiling extending indefinitely. Tashi joined me, growing in size, his flames revealing just how high the ceiling reached.

“Let me see how far up it goes,” Roger said as he flew over my shoulder. It felt like several minutes before he returned.

“The exit is up there,” he said upon his return, “but it’s really high up. Also, for the record, I told you this was a trap.”

“But how are we going to get up there?” I asked him, looking around the space again, and seeing that it was too wide, that we wouldn’t be able to shimmy our way out.

“I’ve got an idea,” Lhandon said, now directly behind me. He stuck his hand into the front of his robes and brought out the prayer beads that Baatar had given him.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Bead Work

Lhandon and I now stood in the adjoined room, the monk holding one of the prayer beads Baatar had given him. “Are you ready?”

“Let’s see what it does.”

He dropped the prayer bead onto the ground and as soon as he did, it ballooned in size, lifting both of us several feet into the air.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Roger said as he lowered onto my shoulder.

Tashi was already at the top, casting light down so we could see how far we had to go.

“Again?” Lhandon asked, grinning. “This is kind of fun.”

“Definitely.”

He popped another prayer bead off its string. It hit the one beneath us and grew in size, our feet naturally moving onto it.

We were now blocking the entrance to the room with the skeleton ash inside.

“This is going to work,” he said as he dropped a third prayer bead. The bead expanded beneath us, lifting us up even further, scraping against the wall as it did so.

“Definitely,” I told him again.

“But then we have the rest of this cavern to get through.”

“I can take a look,” Roger said as he lifted into the air.

“Actually, just stay here,” I told him. “You can go check with Tashi later, just in case something tries to get you.”

“Get me? Maybe you’re right. There could be bats in there...” Roger landed on my shoulder again and observed Lhandon dropping another prayer bead.

We moved up again.

The oversized beads beneath us shifted a little, but the space was small enough that neither of us actually fell off the makeshift platform.

“And what was with that name anyway?” I asked Lhandon as he prepared to drop the next bead. “Flatulence of a Dragon?”

Roger snorted.

“He was mocking the names that people on our path give each other,” Lhandon explained. “You know, kind of like the name I have, the Exalted One. That sort of thing. Drukpa Kunley viewed these titles as frivolous.”

We moved up another level, the bead snapping through a couple inches of the rock sticking out from the wall. We were about halfway there, and as we grew closer to the top, Lhandon started talking about Drukpa Kunley again.

“This wasn’t really his burial,” he explained. “What he has done here is quite brilliant, actually.”

“I’m pretty sure that was a skeleton back there,” I told him, “even if it did turn to ash.”

“Skeletons are easy to come by.”

“Talking ones?”

“With the right rune, yes. It is common knowledge that Drukpa set several false graves like this across Lhasa. I thought they’d all been discovered, to be honest with you. But apparently I was wrong.”

“So this means his actual gravesite is still out there somewhere?” I asked as he dropped another prayer bead.

“That’s right. And perhaps I will put finding it on my bucket list one day.”

“What if his actual gravesite is just like this one, a skeleton talking nonsense?”

“Unfortunately, there was wisdom in his nonsense, and I only wish I’d been able to write it down. No matter,” Lhandon said as he dropped another prayer bead. “His gravesite hasn’t been discovered yet, of that I’m sure, and perhaps I will be able to find it one day.”

“You aren’t afraid that we’re going to be trapped in here?” I asked him.

I hadn’t really given it much thought.

As soon as the entrance caved in, my mind jumped to figuring out another way out of here, ignoring the fact that we could be trapped.

“No, I don’t think we’re trapped,” Lhandon said with a calmness I appreciated.

“Let’s hope that you’re right.”

It took us ten beads in total to make it to the top. I helped Lhandon up to the ledge and then hopped up myself, both of us turning to the narrow passageway ahead.

“I will handle the light from here. Tashi, Roger, please move ahead,” Lhandon said, his hand igniting. I had seen him use this rune before, the light glowing around his fingertips, bright enough that Tashi could move away.

“We’ll be back,” Roger said as they pressed down the narrow passage.

“Be careful!” Lhandon called after them.

Both of us still had our packs on, and while we would be able to fit through the path that lay ahead, I worried about what would happen if it became too narrow.

“What’s the point in all this anyway?” I asked.

“You mean the trap that was left for us?”

I nodded.

“You’re familiar now with the Path of Possession, created by Ganbold the Strong, the path that Sona and her kin practice. It is well known that Drukpa Kunley had incredible items that he had used in his tantric cultivation rituals, which someone on the Path of Possession could potentially use to gain instant power. To make it more difficult for them, he created the fake burial sites. It is unfortunate, too, that we discovered this one, because now that means there is one less decoy in existence for those trying to instantly grow powerful.”

“Are you upset with this mad monk?”

“Honestly? No, I understand nalropas, even if I don’t agree with their interpretation of the Way. I just hope that we aren’t down here for too long,” Lhandon said. “And it definitely beats being out in the sun.”

“I agree with you there. The last several days have been brutal.”

He nodded. “There’s only so much that we can learn from these extreme conditions before we start to question why we are subjugating ourselves to them.”

I saw a bit of light coming down the passageway toward us, Roger arriving before Tashi.

“So I have good news, and I have bad news,” the tropical bird said.

“What’s the bad news?” I asked.

“There’s a huge drop-off up ahead. Tashi flew down to the bottom. It’s filled with spikes and skeletons of various cave animals. It’s not a good look, and the gorge is wide enough that you won’t be able to jump across it.”

“Did you happen to see how wide it was?” Lhandon asked after I translated. “No, that’s not the question I’m trying to ask, I’m more interested in its volume.”

“I don’t know if I can adequately answer that one,” Roger said, “but you’re welcome to come and take a look.”

“He says to come take a look for yourself,” I translated.

“Then let’s do that,” Lhandon said, leading the way.

“Please, be careful, Exalted One,” Tashi said. “We didn’t see any traps, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any in here.”

“Very well,” Lhandon said, careful with each step.

I joined him, the hallway brightly illuminated by both Lhandon’s glowing hand and Tashi’s flames. To make it even brighter, I drew my Flaming Thunderbolt, holding it at my side.

“What was the good news?” I asked Roger. “You never mentioned that.”

“Oh! Well, if you get past this deep gorge, there’s an exit to the cave. And that’s not all. We could see Sarpang from the exit. It might be another forty-minute walk or so, but we’re almost there.” Roger fanned himself with his own wing. “But don’t get too excited. We have to get past this gorge first.”

“He says Sarpang is on the other side of the gorge,” I told Lhandon.

“Most excellent!”

It took us another few minutes to reach the gorge, mostly because Lhandon and I were taking our steps very carefully, expecting darts to fly out of the walls, or an armored skeleton to appear.

Lhandon looked out over the gorge, licking his lips as he mentally measured the volume of the space. He brought the rest of his prayer beads out and bit his lip.

“You’re planning to fill it, aren’t you?” I asked him.

“Do you think it’s enough?” Tashi asked.

“Well, if it isn’t, then we’re going to have to think of something else.”

Lhandon started tossing his prayer beads into the gorge one at a time. At first, all I could hear was the beads hitting the ground and growing, but then I started hearing them landing on top of one another, shifting into place.

“I don’t even remember when you got those things,” Roger said as Lhandon kept chucking the prayer beads into the gorge.

“He received them from Baatar, when we first met him in his cave on our way to get the Flaming Thunderbolt. You weren’t with us at the time.”

“And he only now decides to use them?”

“He’s used them since, but…”

“I sort of forgot that I had them,” Lhandon said as he tossed another bead in, the cacophony of the beads landing against one another becoming louder and louder. “But they’re coming in handy now. Imagine what would have happened if I’d used all of them before!”

“I would be teaching you two how to fly,” Roger said.

“How’s that?” I asked him.

“Easy. I would first instruct you on how to make wings based on the items you have in your bags. And then, the two of you would dive to your deaths, because neither of you are going to be able to fly. Sorry to be blunt. At least you can heal yourself, but then you’d keep dying because there are a lot of spikes down there. You’d eventually starve to death, or some cave rats would eat you. I don’t know.”

“Thanks for being so reassuring, Roger.”

“That’s what you keep me around for, right?”

I could tell by the sound that the beads were getting closer to the top.

“Almost out,” Lhandon said as he tossed in the last seven or eight beads he had.

I looked out over the gorge noticing that the beads weren’t quite level with our current surface. But it was only a few feet difference, which meant we would be able to pull ourselves up.

Well, I would.

It was going to be difficult to get Lhandon up, but I quickly figured out a solution.

“All right, here’s what we do,” I said, telling Lhandon my plan.

It was useless to keep our gourds, especially because the water was giving us weight. We drank as much of the water as we could, leaving our gourds behind.

Once we did that, I turned to the ledge overlooking the gorge filled with enormous prayer beads.

I was the first to step down onto the beads, Lhandon following me, both of us making our way over to the other side of the gorge, careful not to slip into the cracks caused by the giant beads.

We reached the other side. I brought my fist back, and even though I knew it was going to hurt, I punched a couple grooves into the rock wall, using my Fist of Force power.

I then healed myself, the pain disappearing almost immediately.

I gave my bag to Lhandon and jumped up, pulling myself to the top of the ledge. He handed me my bag, which I also pulled up, followed by his bag. Once that was done, Lhandon used the grooves I’d created to scale to the top of the ledge.

It took him a little while, and there were points that I didn’t think he was going to make it, but once he was within distance for me to reach him, I helped, Roger even clamping his beak on Lhandon’s robes also trying to help pull him up.

We finally made it over the ledge, both of us exhausted.

“Thank you, Eternal Hermit,” Lhandon whispered as he finally sat up, dusting off his dirty white robes. “Whew. Let’s get to the city, get a hot bath, get into some new clothing, and continue from there.”

“Good call,” I told him as we made our way toward the exit of the cave.

I could already see the light coming from outside, and as we approached the exit, the sky opened up to us, revealing a great sea in the distance, the relatively large merchant village of Sarpang cast before it.

I spotted a path that led down from the cave entrance, which would make things even easier.

We were safe, we had finally made it.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Soup in Sarpang

We weaved down the mountain pass with relative ease, a soft breeze carrying a briny smell with it.

Sarpang was built mostly on stilts, with platforms and rope-lined plankways serving as the streets for its reptilian citizens. There were several buildings built into the cliff wall on the far side of the village, their exteriors expertly decorated with elaborate, totem pole-like imagery.

I noticed a handful of ships at the docks, one with white and black masts passing by a large lighthouse made of stone. I saw another lighthouse like it, both with large harpoons hooked to giant crossbows that sat on buildings adjacent to the lighthouse.

“What’s that for exactly?” I asked Lhandon as we reached the bottom of the mountain pass. The four of us came to the outskirts of a market that was partially on dry land, and partially on the raised platforms that formed the foundation of the village.

“Sea dragons,” Lhandon said with a shudder.

I nodded, recalling the sea dragon that Hugo and I had encountered. “Makes sense.”

Not everyone in the market looked reptilian.

There were pirates, and a few people with features I’d never seen before, such as a pair of men with completely red skin and black tattoos down the back of their skulls, and a particular woman with long, colorful feathers instead of hair.

The market smelled of fish and spice, the seafood section crowded and rambunctious. Men and women stood on crates, calling out their prices on their latest catches. I watched as one man held a starfish, pointing at people as he yelled out prices, the starfish’s legs curling while he shook it in the air. A woman next to him had similar starfish, although hers was blue and completely dead.

I saw a Druk man dip his hand into a tank and place a writhing creature onto a wooden board stained with fish guts. The man hammered a nail into its head, and skinned its sides while the creature still wiggled. Once he had the meat he wanted, he deposited it in a metal bucket, pulled the nail out, and swept the severed head to the side.

“Anyone else hungry?” Roger asked.

The tropical bird was perched on my shoulder, Tashi back in the small bottle that he occasionally stayed in.

We didn’t want to draw much attention to ourselves, which wasn’t going to be easy considering nearly every Druk person we came across watched us, their eyes blinking vertically.

I didn’t want to judge them, but I was already starting to feel a dislike for the Druk people, the way they stared at us as if they were poised to pounce.

I kept my hand on the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom as we progressed through the crowd, past a man on a spinning loom, his assistant feeding in the thread.

We waited for one of the reptilian people to cross in front of us, the man using his forehead to drag a heavy load of brick and building materials behind him.

I heard a loud snort and looked to my right to see a pair of shaved yaks laboriously turning a large wheel while a man fed grain into a chute, the grain coming out as a powdered substance on the other side.

“Let’s find the first travel lodge we can,” Lhandon said, “and rest for a bit. I don’t know about you, but being out in the open is making me feel a bit uneasy.”

“Agreed. How are we going to pay for the lodge?” I asked Lhandon.

“Jigme would never send me off without a sizable contribution to our journey. Do not worry about details such as that. I have placed a few of the promissory notes in various pockets of my robes and in my bag. There a few in your bag as well. It will cover us.”

“There are?”

Lhandon smiled at me, even though he kept his focus on the path ahead. “There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes, Nick.”

“I figured as much,” I said as we stepped into the part of the village that had been built on platforms, a sandy beach visible beneath us, wet from the recent high tide. The village reminded me of a boardwalk but much grander, like something that an amusement park would use for a fictional pirate setting, the sound of seagulls in the distance.

There were a few roadside stands selling grilled seafood on either side of us. I watched as one of the Druk people removed a squid on a skewer, looked it over, and placed it back down over the fire, licking his fingers before buttering up another one to set next to it.

“Remind me to keep away from the street food,” Roger said with a cackle. “Hey, what about that place up there?”

Sure enough, we saw a lodge with a vacancy sign hanging down from a wooden pole situated just above the door.

“Let me take a look inside first,” Lhandon said, “some of these places are very nice, but others…”

“We’ll hang here,” I told him as I stepped next to the door, my hand on the hilt of my weapon as I watched more Druk people move past me.

A female with a kid on her shoulder stopped, looking me over for a moment.

“Can I help you?” I asked her.

The woman was tall and thin with pink scales around the crown of her head; there was something soft about her features even if she was reptilian, something motherly about her. She wore a loose tunic, her breasts slightly saggy yet her nipples perky.

“Did you come from the Great Plateau?” she asked.

“No,” I lied, “we were on the last ship that came into the port.”

She laughed. “Is that so? Do you mean the ship that was only carrying spices? You don’t look like pirates, or spice for that matter. Were you stowaways?”

Her kid looked at Roger and stuck his forked tongue out at the bird.

“Um…”

“It’s rare to see someone actually come from the Great Plateau who isn’t a thief or a herder,” the woman said.

“That’s not where we came from,” I assured her.

“There’s no need to lie.” She took a step closer to me, eyeing me over.

“Do you normally approach strangers, ask them questions, and then accuse them of lying?”

Roger snorted at this question.

“And you have a bird from Nagchu, am I right?”

“How did you know that?” Roger asked her.

“My parents were big birdwatchers,” she said, proving that the reptilian people could understand birds. “Before his death, my dad was working on a book about the birds of Lhasa.”

“Did you ever see the white birds of Dornod?” Roger asked.

She shook her head. “Not that I can remember. I would have to look to his notes.”

“No need, those birds have lost their damn minds. Trust me,” he said, looking to the kid again for some reason.

The kid made another face at Roger.

“It seems like the little guy hates me…” he said under his breath.

“I’m guessing you won’t be here for very long,” the Druk woman said, focusing again on me.

“Just a few days…” I told her.

“The captains of the ships that come into Sarpang are quite strict about punctuality. If the ship says it will leave at six in the morning, it will leave at six in the morning. I tell you this because ships set out to both Island Kingdoms every morning at six. My family just so happens to run one of those ships, the one that goes to the Island Kingdom of Jonang.”

I looked at her curiously for a moment. “Why are you telling us this?”

The woman shrugged. “Because you are clearly outsiders, and you are clearly trying to get somewhere, evident in the fact that you’ve come from the Great Plateau with your monk friend and your big bags. Further, you came down from the caves, which is one of the more unorthodox ways into the village. I was at the market and followed you here.” Her eyes darted left and right. “I’m not the only person that has noticed your arrival. I thought I would let you know of options for a speedy departure, just in case this was something that you needed.”

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“My full name is Battsegseg, but you may call me Tsegi.” Tsegi turned away from me, stopping just as she got out of arm’s reach. “If you ever need to sail away quickly, just mention my name. Someone will point you to my family’s ship, and I may even be on it. No matter the condition, we’ll make it happen. No questions asked.”

“Why would you do that for me?” I asked her.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t going to cost you; I just said no questions asked.”

Tsegi disappeared into the crowd moving to the street, and as she walked away, I tried to turn my back to them, hoping that my robes and the hood over my head would conceal my face.

Luckily, Lhandon came out of the lodge just a few moments later, letting me know that they had two rooms available, both with bathtubs.

I entered the lodge to find a bar on the right, with the kitchen behind it, as well as plenty of seating on the left. The smell of baked bread wafted through the space, my mouth instantly watering at the thought of eating something other than jerky.

A stairwell at the back went to the second floor, which was where Lhandon led me as he waved at the owner, the man smiling, his eyes blinking vertically as he watched us pass.

The lodge had a New England vibe to it, with fish trophies on the wall and floatation devices used for decoration, lots of rope, and a few nets arranged in a way that made the place seem rustic, seaworthy.

“So you’re on the left,” Lhandon told me, “and I’m on the right. They actually have running hot water here, if you can believe that, but it’s saltwater, so don’t drink any of it. I suggest we both get cleaned up and meet downstairs for fish soup. The owner said that they would prepare it now, so it should be ready in about thirty minutes.” He licked his lips. “I’ve had the fish soup of the Druk people before. You are in for quite a treat, Nick!”

Roger yawned. “I think I’ll take a rest in the room while you two eat. I can also keep my eye on the place. The windows open, right? If so, I wouldn’t mind a nice breeze.”

“He wants to know if the windows open,” I translated.

“Let’s find out,” Lhandon said, using his key to open his door. He peeked his head inside and looked at the windows, turning back out to me. “They sure do, but I don’t believe anyone will be able to reach us, if that was his concern. This place is nice, Nick, secure and safe. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

“Good call,” I told him as I stepped into my own room, noticing that there was a bed in the far corner with a painting over it, the ceiling high, the room reminding me of an attic apartment in the way that it mirrored the contours of the outside building.

I took my pack off and rubbed my shoulders for a moment.

“Glad to have that off,” I said.

“I’ll bet,” Roger chimed in.

I placed Tashi’s bottle on the small writing desk in front of the window, the fire spirit slowly exiting from the top. He stayed about a foot tall, a smile on his face as he took in the place. “I believe I stayed in this same room years ago,” he said.

“No, you didn’t.” Roger hopped onto the bed and fell sideways onto a pillow, looking over at the fire spirit. “Nick, can you pop the window? I’d like a little of the fresh sea breeze. It’s so damn nice to be back at a comfortable altitude.”

“Sure thing, Rog.”

After opening the window, I moved to the bathroom, where I took my robes off, found the spout, and filled the tub with hot seawater.

My eyes fell upon a small, circular mirror on the sink. I looked myself over as the water filled, noticing that my cheeks were even gaunter than they had been the last time I’d seen myself.

It made sense.

We had just trekked through what was essentially the desert to get here, and that was after a week of pretty intense training in Dornod.

Once the tub was full, I got in, letting out a sigh of happiness as I settled into the water. It was a perfect temperature, a thin glaze on top of the water caused by the salt.

I soaked for a good fifteen minutes, and then finally washed my hair.

I wrapped the towel around my waist and went to the other room, taking my last pair of clean robes from my bag, Tashi still talking to Roger about the last time he visited the merchant village.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” I told the two of them, Roger simply nodding, continuing his conversation.

Once my boots were on, I stepped out of the room and headed downstairs.

I was the only person in the room other than the owner, who was still behind the bar. He smiled at me, eventually coming over to me with a platter full of bread.

“Your soup will be served once your companion joins you.”

“Not a problem,” I told him as I ate a piece of bread, happy with how fresh it was.

I took a look around again, enjoying the feel of the place, wishing we could stay here for a few days and just unwind.

But I knew that there was an adventure ahead of us, that this was just the start of a long journey.

And while I enjoyed being with Lhandon, Roger, and Tashi, a not so insignificant part of me wished that Saruul was here as well. I smiled, imagining her in front of me, the way she could look so prim yet so relaxed, beautiful and graceful.

“Wish you were here,” I whispered as I went for another slice of bread.

Lhandon joined me a few minutes later.

He took a seat across from me, the monk’s face still red from the hot bathwater.

“How excellent was that?” he asked with a wide grin on his face.

“Absolutely wonderful,” I told him.

The owner of the lodge brought two bowls of soup over to us, smiling and bowing as he placed them on the table. “It is my grandmother’s recipe,” the Druk man said cheerfully, “and I only make it this time of year because of the abundance of eels after the winter moon.”

“I can’t wait to try it,” Lhandon said, lifting the spoon to his mouth.

I tasted it, immediately enjoying the savory flavor of the broth. Lhandon tore into his soup, clearly excited to have warm food for once.

And he was just about to finish his bowl when he looked up at me, his eyes going wide.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

But before he could answer, Lhandon fell to the side, cracking his head on the wooden floor.

“Lhandon?!” I asked, trying to stand.

My knees wobbled and I started to fall too, everything turning dark.

It was the last thing I would remember for quite some time.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Gomchen

My first reaction was to struggle, to kick my feet and try to move my hands. My breath came to me, my limbs tingling.

It was useless.

As my blurry surroundings started to come into focus, I realized that my head was propped up against something metal, that my entire body was encased in a coffin that had been cut into the wall.

I looked right to see Lhandon, his neck jutting out of the wall, his body also completely contained on the other side.

He was still out, drool pooling at the corner of his mouth.

Looking left confirmed that we were definitely in a dungeon, bars separating us from a hallway, the floors filthy and the space poorly lit.

My mind was foggy, but it was clear to me what had happened; we had been poisoned, and we’d been taken to some kind of underground bunker where our bodies had been shoved into a… wall?

I shook my arms and legs again, confirming that they were still there. It was a stupid thing to have to confirm, but my mind was still fuzzy, and even though I knew we were trapped I still didn’t quite understand our surroundings.

We had been placed in what resembled human-sized drawers with holes cut in them for our heads, our wrists and ankles shackled.

I looked up at the wall in front of me.

I noticed that there were grooves cut into the wood, that someone could theoretically open the drawer, exposing my body, like something a cadaver would be placed in.

I started to wiggle, trying to use my feet to press forward, to hopefully pop the drawer out.

It didn’t work, but it did have the effect of waking Lhandon up, the monk gasping as he realized he was trapped.

“Where…?”

“Someone poisoned us…” I said, my instinct going to the ring that gave me my Fist of Force power. I touched my finger.

The ring was gone.

“We were poisoned?” he asked, a frown starting to form on his face.

“Shit,” I whispered, finally looking over to Lhandon. “You were the first to fall, I fell right after you…”

My senses started to come back to me.

The dungeon we were in reeked of stone and vomit. I tried to breathe out of my mouth, only to realize that my mouth was incredibly dry, an acidic aftertaste at the back of my throat.

My eyes moved along the brick wall, hoping that there was a window of sorts, that I could at least get oriented.

From there I tried to look behind me, but I wasn’t able to see anything, the piece of metal holding up the back of my head not allowing me to bend back any further. I glanced to the left again, at the bars, a sense of desperation coming to me.

“Arrgh!” I shouted, trying to break free from my bonds, conjuring as much strength as I had.

Moving my body around made me realize that my waist was situated over a hole for what I assumed was human excrement, and that I was naked on the other side of the wall.

“How are we going to get out of here?” I asked Lhandon, trying not to panic, my heart now fluttering in my chest.

“Tashi and Roger will find us. I know they will.”

“Have you ever seen something like this before?”

“I know exactly what it is, Nick,” Lhandon said, a frightful look coming over his eyes as he stared up at the wall. “It’s a type of torture chamber that the Druk people use. Or, they used to use them. I didn’t know…”

“We’re going to be tortured?”

“This is part of the torture,” he said, nodding at the fact that we were both practically embedded in the wall. “From what I’ve read, they just leave people like this for days.”

“So they’re going to starve us to death?”

“It’s a possibility, or they will torture us on the other side of the wall, removing a limb, that sort of thing. It is most barbaric. We have to be strong, Nick! We have to believe that we will get out of here, that our friends will save us.”

“Do you have a rune we could use?”

He shook his head. “Not one for this particular scenario, and you don’t either.”

For a moment I thought of casting Bah-Mo, only to realize that he wouldn’t be able to go very far, nor did the monkey have any effect on beings from this realm.

“Dema,” I whispered.

“Let’s hope someone comes,” Lhandon said.

A door opened up at the end of the hallway, the sound of footsteps immediately echoed into our cell. “So they are awake,” a man with a low, rumbly voice said.

He was reptilian, as were the two guards on either side of him. The guards were clad in leather armor, both of them with swords sheathed at their sides.

The man who had spoken was in a set of dark robes, and as he came into view, I realized that I’d seen him before. He was the evil monk who attacked the monastery alongside Sona, the one who had brought Baatar down.

“It’s you,” Lhandon gasped.

“You may call me Gomchen,” the man told Lhandon, his red nostrils flaring as he looked us over. “I had a feeling you would come here, Nick and Lhandon, the Exalted One. You two sure have upset Sona and Evan.”

“Evan?” I asked, suddenly growing angry.

He nodded. “It was smart of me to suggest that I come here, to cut you off if you tried to leave the Kingdom of Lhasa through Sarpang. Sona didn’t seem to think that this was what you were going to do; she thought that you were possibly heading off to Cultivation Hills, or maybe even Bamda. But I knew better. You certainly weren’t going to head east, and you left in the direction of the Darkhan Mountains, which meant you would eventually reach the Great Plateau. And anyone that reaches the Great Plateau will likely stop here. But the question remains: where were you planning to go next?”

“That doesn’t concern you,” Lhandon told him firmly. “Now, allow us to go free, and we will forgive you of your actions.”

The two guards, who now stood at the door of the cell, chuckled to themselves.

“Stop laughing,” Gomchen said, glaring over to them. “You must not judge the monk for being naïve, after all, I believe it was the great Drukpa Kunley who said naivety was the third stage on the Path of the Divine.”

“He also said the Path of Possession is for those trying to fill an empty void in their souls,” Lhandon said bitterly.

“He was a mad monk, a nalropa, and he said a lot of frivolous things. It is sad, though, a true pity that you will never understand what it’s like to cultivate negative karma, or how strong you could actually become.”

“That doesn’t matter to me,” Lhandon said with true conviction in his voice. “I don’t care if it would make me the strongest person in this world. It isn’t worth it; it isn’t the right thing to do, and what you have done will put you on a path to hell.”

“Some people say the Overworld is hell, and the Underworld is heaven. I suppose it is all about perspective, as are most things. But you know what? Since you both are here, I’m going to give you a chance to escape before Sona gets here, to show you just how gracious of a host I can be.”

“She’s coming?” I asked, swallowing hard.

“Yes, but it will be several days from now before she gets here.” Gomchen sniffed the air. “Can’t you smell it? A storm is coming. We will have to wait for the storm to subside before a ship can possibly come from Nagchu, and that’s without taking into account how long it will take our messenger to get there. But I will keep you alive.”

“Don’t play games with us,” Lhandon said. “We have allies…”

“Are you referring to the fire spirit and the bird? Because if you are, they’re long gone, which was probably a smart move on their part. The window was open in your bedroom, and there was no way that the bird or the fire spirit could have known what we were planning. It seems to me as if their plan all along was to abandon you.”

“Whatever,” I said, starting to grow agitated with the calm way in which Gomchen spoke to us. “You don’t know our friends, and if you think that they’re going to leave us down here, you’re in for a rude and very fiery awakening.”

“Let’s assume they are gone. And now that we’ve assumed that, let’s get back to the topic at hand, to me giving you one chance to escape.”

“What do you mean?” I finally asked, realizing that he was waiting for one of us to take the bait.

“Exalted One, you claim that you don’t believe it’s worth cultivating negative karma and that all that we do is bad, and iniquity will get you nowhere. Does this sound about right?”

Lhandon didn’t answer.

“So here’s what’s going to happen…” Gomchen said as the two guards came forward, both of them placing their hands on the drawer keeping me in the wall. They pulled me out, one of them unlocking the chains that shackled my wrists and ankles.

I was naked, and before I could do anything, one of the guards grabbed me by the neck and tossed me out of the drawer, straight to the floor.

I clenched my fists together, ready for the two to pounce, preparing to fight back in any way that I could. They stepped aside instead, Gomchen with his back to me now, nodding his head.

He finally turned, showing me that he wore my ring that gave the wearer the Fist of Force ability.

“Beat me, and we will let you go free. You will go free naked, so that may be a bit uncomfortable, but we will let you go. And that is an order,” he told the guards. “If he beats me, you will free the monk, and let them both leave here.”

The two guards nodded, both with their right hands on the hilts of their swords.

“I realize it isn’t fair to have to fight me naked, but I am but a monk, and I really don’t have much training when it comes to combat,” Gomchen said, clearly lying through his teeth.

“Okay,” I said as I pressed myself to my feet.

I took in two deep breaths and brought my hands up to the ready, just as Dohna had taught me.

I bounced on my knees a little, making sure that I was loose.

And rather than give away the fact that I was going to attack, I simply launched into my first punch, Gomchen stepping aside.

I nearly hit the bars and stopped myself just in time.

I turned to meet him again, Gomchen delivering a punch to my stomach that sent me flying into the bars, the sting radiating down to my legs.

I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a swift stomp from the evil monk.

Moving just how Dohna rehearsed with me, I came for him, and then stepped to the side at the last minute, leading him to believe that I was about to strike. He tried to avoid my attack; I cracked my fist against the side of his head, ducking his next punch.

A wave of force threw me into the brick wall, knocking the air out of me.

“Nick!” Lhandon said, trying to break free of his leg and wrist shackles.

“Okay,” I told the monk, spitting blood. I traced up the Rune of Distortion, Goh-Mo, closing my eyes just as I finished off the character.

But rather than distort the reality of anyone in front of me, I received a punch to the face that made everything flash red.

I landed on the floor, blood from my mouth quickly pooling on the filthy stone tiles.

I wiped my blood on my arm and swung my fist at Gomchen, trying to give myself a little distance so I could cast the rune that allowed me to absorb three strikes.

He kneed me in the chest and I hit the ground again.

“Your runes aren’t strong enough to work against me,” he said, stepping on my wrist. “But let’s make this fun, let’s make it so you can’t actually heal yourself.” Gomchen dropped to one knee and delivered a punch to my hand that shattered all my bones.

I cried out, and as I did, he punched the other hand, breaking the bones there as well, my fingers all but useless.

“Put him back in,” he told the two guards as he stood, dusting off his robes. “That was your only chance; you will be in here until Evan and Sona arrive. Perhaps I will feed you, as I’d like you to be alive for when they get here. But not today, and probably not tomorrow.” Gomchen reached the door of the cell and stopped. “I hope you enjoyed my teaching, Exalted One.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dungeon Hallucinations

“Nick… Nick…”

I heard Lhandon’s voice come to me, and as soon as I blinked my eyes open I realized that I was back in the drawer, my fingers screaming with pain, my inner organs throbbing.

“Lhandon?” I asked, my breaths shorter than normal.

“Nick, you’re awake!” He swallowed hard, and as I turned to look over at him, I saw that his eyes were bulging. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I’m so sorry to see you are suffering!”

I heard a gastrointestinal noise behind the wall, Lhandon letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m so sorry for that as well…”

“It’s not your fault,” I managed to tell him, trying to breathe out of my mouth now. “How long was I out?”

“I lost track of time,” he said. “It has been a while, though. Hours.”

“My hands…”

I could still move my wrists, but all my fingers were all but numb. I tried to flop the palm of my hand against the inner wall of my encasement, which only created a sharp sting that shot straight up my arm.

“You have to heal yourself,” Lhandon said, now focused on me and breathing heavily. “You can do it, Nick, use Lha-Mo.”

“He broke all my fingers…”

“Try your toes.”

“My toes?”

“It may work!”

“Um… sure.”

I started by making a square with my big toe. I then traced a curled line extending from the bottom of the square, adding the two slash marks, and instantly noticed a warmth radiating from my stomach.

I heard my bones crack as my hands repaired themselves, as my bruises faded away, my breaths becoming lighter.

I let out a gasp followed by a sigh.

“Better?”

“Better.”

“I know that Roger and Tashi haven’t abandoned us,” Lhandon started to say. “But perhaps they will have trouble finding us down here.”

I looked over to the entrance of our self, at the lock. “If they do get down here, the only way that we will be able to open the door is by melting through it, which may take a moment.”

“It is very thick steel,” Lhandon agreed.

“How many days does it take to get from Nagchu to here by sea?” I asked him.

“I would say at least three days, but if there’s a storm it will take Evan and Sona longer, and as Gomchen mentioned, the messenger will have to reach there first. I’m afraid we may be down here for a while unless we figure out another way!”

“I’ll keep trying to call my dakini, but I sort of shot myself in the foot by healing up.” I glanced at Lhandon to find him looking at me curiously, his cheeks still red with embarrassment from the bowel movement he’d just made. “It’s an expression. The point is: it is easier for her to come when I’m injured. Shit. I wasn’t thinking straight. I should have stayed that way.”

“But weren’t you suffering?”

“I was in pain, yes, but it was nothing that I haven’t experienced before, especially in my training with Dohna.” I tried to move, even though I knew it was useless. “This is the worst.”

“We need to focus and try to come up with a way to get out of here. Perhaps we should meditate.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll start us off,” Lhandon said with a deep breath in. “Close your eyes, and start to let your panicked thoughts filter away. We are trapped. That is a fact. But a solution will present itself, of this I’m sure. Take a deep breath in, all the way to the back of your skull, as the Eternal Hermit once instructed us. Imagine you are breathing through a tunnel. Start to ignore my voice, and let the void of mindfulness wash over you.”

I started doing as Lhandon said, breathing in as deeply as possible, ignoring the smells in the room, and the fact that I was trapped. It took me a few breaths to get into a groove, but eventually I did, my thoughts now on the periphery.

Lhandon’s voice softened and as it did my mind started to dive forward, energy cascading all around me.

How do we get out of here? How do we free ourselves of this terrible dungeon?

I thought this question into the void, a ripple of purple light moving over me.

I basked in its rays for a moment, sifting through dozens of visualizations pouring through my skull. I silenced all of them with a deep breath, returning my focus to simply being present, letting the emotions I had been experiencing wilt away from my body.

Rune of Distortion…

It was Dema’s voice, but rather than react, I simply nodded, realizing what she was asking me to do.

I stayed in the space for another twenty or thirty minutes, calming myself even further, almost drifting off to sleep.

But I didn’t forget the answer that had come to me.

I eventually came out of it, turning to see that Lhandon was still in meditation, the worried look now stripped from the monk’s face.

He sensed that I was finished and opened his eyes, turning his head to me. “Anything?”

“I have an idea,” I told him. “She spoke to me.”

“Wonderful.”

“Close your eyes.”

Lhandon nodded, resting his head on the metal bar that kept our necks erect.

I traced up Goh-Mo, the Rune of Distortion, by starting with an angled box, and pulling a line off the top of it, which I extended downward, finishing it off with a curl.

I did so with my eyes open, and as soon as I was done with the character, my perception began to morph.

“I’m ready, Dema,” I said aloud, looking to my left, to the entrance of our cell, where I assumed she would come from, everything around me kaleidoscoping.

But rather than my guardian angel appearing, someone else began to take shape.

“It’s you,” I said, my eyes going wide as the man moved right through the bars.

He nodded.

“Please, go find help, go get Roger, get Tashi. Please,” I said, hardly able to focus on him. “We need your help. We’re counting on you.”

The man started to walk toward me, pressing right through my head.

I looked right to see him do the same to Lhandon, the man stopping right before he reached the brick wall.

He turned to me, nodded, and merged into the wall, disappearing completely.

“Was it her?” Lhandon asked after he didn’t say anything.

“No, it was… Him.”

“Who?”

I gulped. “My double.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Awful Fish Offal

Hours passed.

At some point I dozed off, waking again when Lhandon started snoring, the portly monk eventually snoring so loudly that he woke himself up too. He turned to me and apologized, his cheeks flushing red with embarrassment.

“It’s fine,” I assured him.

“How long do you think we’ve been sleeping?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But it definitely wasn’t long enough.”

“I hope your double finds Tashi and Roger,” Lhandon said. “I hope he does it soon.”

“Same, and I wish we had a better way to track time. There’s absolutely no light coming in from outside. I can’t tell if a day has passed, or if it has only been a few hours.”

“It has been more than a few hours,” Lhandon said, “but I don’t know if it has been a day or not. We must make it through this, Nick! We just have to trust that this is going to work out, that a solution will present itself.”

“We should have just gone straight to the docks,” I told him, disdain creeping into my voice. “I met a woman outside named Tsegi while you were in the lodge. She seemed to be trustworthy, and her family has a vessel that leaves every morning to the Island Kingdom. We should have just gone with her, and slept on the ship for the night. It would have been the smartest thing to do.”

“Perhaps, but both of us were in need of a bath.”

“Can’t argue with that. Still, it makes me angry that we came all the way through the Great Plateau, only to be poisoned while we were having a bowl of soup.” I started to clench my fists together, feeling my shackles constrict just a little.

“It was a dirty trick, I agree, and if the owner of that lodge had a part in it, I hope he one day realizes what he has done, and the bad karma that he has reaped from doing so.”

“Wouldn’t he just be cultivating negative karma?”

“Not necessarily. Misdeeds and other sinful acts actually disrupt the flow of karma. If that has not been clear to you, please try to think of it this way from now on: a normal person doing something wrong to another person doesn’t necessarily cultivate negative karma, it creates bad karma instead, which will lead to a lesser rebirth. This isn’t the same for Gomchen, who is actively trying to cultivate negative karma, which makes him stronger. There are a number of rituals involved for someone to take the Path of Possession that he is on. A layperson won’t experience the same results.”

“I didn’t realize that was the way it worked.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, subtly nodding his head and wincing at the pain in his neck. “I do wish we had a pillow to place our heads on, but I guess that wouldn’t be torturous enough.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re probably right.”

I heard the door shut down the hallway, and the sound of footsteps on the stone.

The two reptilian guards from earlier opened the cell door and made their way over to Lhandon.

“What are you doing?” Lhandon asked as they pulled out his drawer and began removing his shackles.

“Hey!” I rattled the cuffs around my wrists and ankles, trying to get their attention.

The two men ignored me as they rolled Lhandon out, the naked monk flopping to the floor.

“Please, don’t do this,” he said as one of the guards dragged him to the other side of the room.

“Gomchen asked us to soften you up a bit.” The guard brought his fist into Lhandon’s stomach. “If you ask me, you already feel soft enough.”

“Fight me!” I screamed at them, spit flying out of my mouth. “Leave him alone!”

I continued to try to wiggle my way out of the drawer, craning my neck at the same time, hoping to see what was happening to Lhandon.

They were directly behind the crown of my head now, so I was only able to make out what was happening through noises, Lhandon whispering a mantra as the two Druk guards beat him, as he tried to block their punches.

“Do something!” I shouted to Lhandon. “Fight back!”

One of them grabbed Lhandon by the throat and slammed him into the brick wall, the action now within my pane of vision. The man turned him over and forcefully pressed Lhandon’s face against the brick wall, pulling his head back using his ponytail.

“No!” I shouted, my blood boiling.

Time slowed down, but only for me.

I still saw what was about to happen, that the guard was about to slam Lhandon’s head into the brick wall…

“Come on…” I said, searching my brain for an idea, some way to help Lhandon.

An idea came and I went with it.

I closed my eyes and cast the Rune of Distortion, waiting with my eyes shut for time to speed back up.

“What the…?”

The second guard turned, slamming into the bars. The other one, the one near Lhandon, stumbled and fell next to the monk.

I blinked my eyes open to see Lhandon drop his hand onto the man’s arm, the Druk guard twitching, his skin starting to turn blue.

He started to gasp, his teeth chattering as Lhandon finally let up.

The monk grunted as he pushed himself up to his feet. “Nick…”

“Help me out of here,” I said, whipping my body left and right.

Lhandon stumbled over to me, and was just about to reach my head when he slipped, falling to a knee.

“Nick…”

The second guard was cursing now, his hand over his eyes as he withdrew his sword. He swung his sword blindly, shouting for his companion, who was balled up and shivering.

Lhandon crawled on the floor toward me, coming back into my view as the man swung his sword again.

I heard a loud clank! as the guard’s sword connected with the metal bars.

“Nick…” Lhandon stopped once his back was against the wall, the monk now looking up at me.

His face was severely bruised, blood dripping from his chin, one of his eyes completely swollen shut already. There were lacerations on his body, large red marks as well.

“I’ll heal you,” I whispered to him, and I tried casting up Healing Hand, only to realize that my power hadn’t refreshed itself.

I heard the door into the hallway again, feet running in our direction this time.

More guards flooded into our cell, one of them shouting at the man who had the sword. He immediately dropped his weapon to the ground, keeping his hands over his eyes he stepped to the far corner of the space.

The two new guards grabbed Lhandon by the arms, and dragged him over to his drawer, both of them lifting him into it and shackling up his arms and legs.

I screamed at them, told them to let me go, and for my efforts one of them punched me so hard in that side of the head that it ruptured something in my eye, my vision scratchy and blurred.

It wasn’t long before they had Lhandon back in his drawer, the monk wheezing, trying to adjust to the pain.

The guards left, two of them carrying out the man that Lhandon had nearly frozen to death.

“Put yourself to sleep,” I told him suddenly. “You can do that, right?”

Lhandon nodded. “Can… can I put you to sleep first?” he asked, the words fumbling out of his lips.

“Yes, that’s fine, as long as you still will be able to do it to yourself.”

“Okay,” he said.

It was only a few moments later that I started to feel drowsy, sleep coming over me.

I found myself behind Saruul’s home, blindfolded, the beautiful lioness at my side.

“It’s time to practice,” she said, and rather than bring my fists up, I instinctively sat with my legs crossed under my body.

I inhaled deeply, daring my enemies to come at me.

I was back in the void, cognizant enough with what was happening to realize that I was meditating within a dream.

It came to me at that moment that there were a number of things I could do, from levitating to changing the dreamscape, but rather than do any of those things, I focused even harder on my practice, once again envisioning the switch that activated my power.

My real body was in a horizontal locker in a dungeon somewhere in Sarpang, yet my mind was still free, and since I had sent my double out, there may still be a chance for us yet.

This meant that I needed to hone my practice, to be able to control my power once and for all, as there was a time coming that I would need it.

Of this I was sure.

And as much as I liked sitting in meditation, I knew it wasn’t going to happen this way in real life, not in a real fight.

I removed my blindfold, and cast it to the side.

The masked lion man sat in front of me, and as I stood, he too got to his feet, bringing his hands to the ready.

I brought my fists up as he lunged for me.

I stepped back, visualizing the switch with my eyes open and hitting it, the lion man freezing mid-punch.

I swept him to his feet, time returning to its normal pace.

He flipped himself back up, and as he did I stopped time yet again, delivering three blows to his stomach, and finally finishing him off with an uppercut.

My opponent slammed onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

I waited for him to get up again, momentarily forgetting I was in a dream.

He came at me with a spinning kick, a kick destined to never connect as I stopped time yet again.

I took my position across from the lion man, and I was just about to deliver my final attack when a sharp pain woke me from my dream.

Gomchen stood over me, half of my body out of the drawer.

The stench of fish was heavy in the air, strong enough that it burned the inside of my nostrils for a moment.

“Using a rune to fall asleep,” the evil monk said, a sinister smile taking shape on his face. “Again,” he told someone standing to my left.

A leather switch whipped against my bare chest, the sting radiating to my back.

“Fight me!” I screamed, the blood rushing to my appendages as I tried to break free from my shackles.

“I have to admit,” Gomchen said, pacing now, “it is a good way to pass the time considering the two of you have been asleep for nearly a day.”

“Yai!” Lhandon cried after one of the guards whipped him in the chest as well.

“You nearly killed one of our guards,” Gomchen told Lhandon as he placed his hand on the monk’s shoulder. “That wouldn’t have been very karmically beneficial for you, now would it?”

I could see several lacerations on Lhandon’s bare chest now, blood dripping down the side of his body. Purple and blue blotches lined his arms and shoulders, and while the blood on his face had dried, his bruises were practically swelling.

I winced as the man next to me whipped me across the chest again.

“Fuck you…” I said through gritted teeth, glaring at the reptilian guard.

“I promised you I would feed you,” Gomchen said, a warm smile on his face. It was like he thrived off fear and anger, the man absolutely ecstatic at seeing us being abused.

And before I could respond, a tube made of metal was placed in my mouth, a funnel on its other end. I tried to struggle, to spit it out, but a pair of hands clamped down on either side of my face, thumbs going into the sides of my cheeks and making it so I couldn’t move.

As one guard held me down, the other poured a bucket full of minced fish mush in my mouth. I began to gag on the offal, and as I did, the hands holding my head tilted me up, forcing the ground bits of meat to go down my throat.

I started to vomit; they simply poured more offal on me, the vomit meeting the ground up bits of viscera and spilling out of sides of my mouth.

“That should be enough,” Gomchen said joyfully. “We don’t want the Exalted One to go hungry. Make sure you give them some water as well.”

“Our friends will come for us,” Lhandon said, glaring up at Gomchen.

One of the guards brought the switch against Lhandon’s chest again, the monk crying out.

I was just spitting out what was left of the fish guts when a bucket of freezing cold water was dumped onto my head.

“Pfff!” I gasped for air as another bucket was poured on my face.

“Good!” Gomchen said, turning his focus back to Lhandon.

I looked right to see one of the men shoving the tube into Lhandon’s mouth, the funnel on top.

I noticed something was off about my vision, likely stemming from the punch I had received earlier. Knowing that I couldn’t do anything to help Lhandon, I turned away, wincing as I heard them force-feed the fish guts to him and finish off with two buckets of cold water.

“How wonderful,” Gomchen said, rubbing his hands together. “Sona and Evan will appreciate that we’ve kept the two of you well fed. We’ll be back tomorrow for your daily meal.”

As Gomchen said this, both Lhandon and I were pushed back into the wall, our heads sticking out again.

I looked over to the monk, his face sopping wet, a lump of meat on his forehead, his eyes puffy. Lhandon nodded at me and tried to smile, the ends of his cheeks twitching and ultimately ruining his attempt.

The cell door squeaked as Gomchen and his guards left the room. Once they were down the hallway, the sound of their feet diminishing, Lhandon spoke: “Heal yourself, Nick. I will put us back to sleep.”

“I wish I could heal you,” I told him.

“It’s fine… I’ll survive,” he said, with less conviction than he normally had. “We will just sleep. Roger and Tashi will come for us. I know it. I trust it.”

I traced up Healing Hand, repairing my eye and the cuts on my chest, but not able to do anything about the terrible taste in my mouth.

“We’ll make it,” Lhandon said again, his voice growing softer.

It wasn’t long before I started to drift off to sleep, happy to be away from this terrible place.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Monk in Worcester

I welcomed my dream state with open arms.

Anything to be away from the dungeon, away from watching my friend be tortured, the terrible conditions, and the slop they were forcing down our throats.

In here I could meditate, I could relax, I could travel anywhere, and after a spell of meditation in which I practiced turning my power on and off, including doing it with my eyes open, I decided to finally return to America.

I found myself back in my apartment in Worcester, a note on the fridge telling me that my roommate had gone to Boston for the weekend to visit some friends.

I took a deep breath in, feeling like I was home, like I was safe.

I walked to the window and saw the highway in the distance, and knowing that it was a dream, I lifted the window and floated out, flying above the buildings and toward the highway.

I circled back around, heading in the direction of Indian Lake, eventually lowering onto someone’s boat dock where I placed my legs in the water.

Even though I could tell it was cold outside, the trees various shades of orange, yellow, and red, I wore shorts, my legs looking bleached beneath the surface of the lake.

I looked out over the water to see Sears Island and the beautiful homes on it, old money on display as it often was in New England. There were a few ducks in the lake, happily dipping their heads in and coming back out, beads of lake water slicking off their bodies.

A form began to approach me, a woman with white hair and elven ears.

“You came,” I told Dema as she grew closer.

She placed her hand on her throat, indicating that she couldn’t speak, a true sadness to her eyes. Dema sat down next to me, pulling her robes back so she could dip her feet in the water as well.

My guardian angel reached out and touched my cheek, a warmth spreading over me.

I could see my reflection in her eyes, but it wasn’t the Nick Barnette that I had grown used to seeing in Lhasa, the grizzled one in his monk’s robes. It was the Nick Barnette from Massachusetts, in an old Boston Red Sox shirt, clean-shaven, hair cut short.

I opened my mouth to speak to her but stopped, not wanting to come off as pleading. I knew that there wasn’t much she could do from her world, not in the current situation that we were in.

Looking back out of the water, I noticed a large wave coming my way.

A rush of cold water tore me away from my dream. I gasped awake, and one of the Druk guards cracked me across the face with his switch.

“Morning,” Gomchen said cheerfully, “actually, it’s more like afternoon. But it’s morning to you, I suppose. Awake yet?” he asked me, peering down at my face.

I glared at him for a moment until I noticed two of the guards standing over Lhandon.

“Leave him alone,” I said firmly. “Don’t hurt him. Hurt me instead.”

One of the guards poured a bucket of water over Lhandon’s face, and the other cracked him with the switch.

“You never told me where you were headed,” Gomchen said.

“Don’t tell him, Nick!” Lhandon cried.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to suppress how much I hated the man.

“I would like to know; I’m sure it’s something that Evan and Sona will find useful to their plans. I could reward you, you know. Give me a little information and I will give you some proper food.”

“Not happening,” I told him.

“I figured as much.”

One of the men stuck the metal tube in Lhandon’s mouth, the funnel open at the other end. As his counterpart held Lhandon’s head steady, the guard started pouring in the fish offal, Lhandon choking on the rotten mush and trying to spit some of it out.

He was rewarded for his efforts with another face full of freezing water, followed by more whips across his chest once they pulled him out of his drawer.

“You fucker!” I said, glaring up at Gomchen. “When I get out of here…”

“How are you going to get out? Sona and Evan are on their way, and your companions have abandoned you. This is your reality. And what I’m doing to you will be pleasant compared to what Sona has in store. So I would enjoy it if I were you, because I was with her when you and your companions escaped, which means I heard her speak about what she planned to do once she caught you. It is going to be very public; it is going to be very brutal. She will make an example of you. So consider this like…” The evil monk searched his mind for the right word. “An appetizer.”

The metal tube was stuffed into my mouth, one guard pouring fish guts in, the other holding my head stationary, his thumbs keeping my lips open. I tried to spit some of the offal out, and as I did, a bucket of water was dumped on my face, followed by another one, giving me the sensation that I was going to drown.

“I will see you two tomorrow,” Gomchen said, turning to the door. “If we’re lucky, Evan and Sona will be here the day after, or perhaps three days from now. Either way, it will be soon. Enjoy your rest.”

He left the cell, followed by his guards.

I returned my attention to Lhandon, who was looking even worse than he had the previous day.

“Are you all right?” I asked him, and when he didn’t respond, I asked him again, louder this time.

“N-Nick?” Lhandon blinked his eyes open and looked over to me. “I’ll be okay,” he said, taking a deep breath and wincing at the pain in his chest. I was too busy being concerned for Lhandon to pay attention to the cut on my face, or the blood running down my cheek and into my ear.

“Just hang in there…” I said, wishing there was something I could do for him. “We’ll survive.”

“We all must suffer,” he said with a nod, cringing again. “And I’m not the only monk to endure extreme hardships. I’m trying to think of all of them right now, to respect what they went through to honor the Path of the Divine.”

“Sure, if it helps, do whatever you have to do to stay strong. I know that Roger and Tashi aren’t going to let us down, I only hope that my double actually found them…”

“There was a monk named Milarepa,” Lhandon started to say, his jaw hanging a little loose. He spat a hunk of viscera out and continued speaking. “Milarepa was born into a prosperous family, and his relatives stole his father’s wealth when he was young. In his teenage years, he killed his uncle for robbing his father, and got away with it too. Eventually, he started to regret what he’d done, so he went to a famous monk named Marpa and asked to become his student.”

“He was a murderer?”

Lhandon nodded. “And Marpa knew this to be the case. Before he would teach him, he instructed Milarepa to build a tower by himself. Once he built the tower, he told the young man to tear it down brick by brick. He had him do this three times, and it took several years to complete each of the towers. Eventually, he started work on the fourth tower and finished it. Once Milarepa was done, Marpa finally took him as his student.”

Lhandon turned his head to the other side and spit blood onto the ground. He returned his gaze to me. “My apologies.”

“It’s fine, man, this is incredibly shitty.”

“Yes, it isn’t ideal,” he cleared his throat, his voice wavering as he spoke: “Milarepa was instructed to go into the mountains and meditate, which he did for years and years. I don’t know if you saw his picture at the monastery or at the temple, but you may have seen a monk with green skin. This is a representation of Milarepa, his skin color coming from the seeds he consumed during his deep meditation.”

“The seeds turned him green?” I asked, ignoring the pain on my face and now trying to visualize what this would look like.

“That’s right. He had one seed a day, a reward for a day’s meditation. He reached the stage of a divine master, but according to his teachings, he opted out of becoming a Golden One. Maybe he is still out there, on a different island, in a different incarnation still performing his work. The reason I’m telling you all this is because he suffered greatly, but he persevered in the end. So this,” Lhandon said, his eyes coming open as he looked at the wall and the way that we were detained, “is doable. It is part of my story, and your story as well. We must suffer. Suffering is a crucial part of anyone’s story who has ever gone on to change the world. We will make it through this, Nick, and if we don’t, we will come back and start all over again, trying to help as many as we can…”

“We’re going to make it out, don’t start talking like we’re dying.”

He coughed up more blood. “I think I’m ready to go to sleep.”

“I’m serious, Lhandon,” I told him, my throat quivering. “I can’t have you dying on me. We have to get out of this.”

“Heal yourself,” he said firmly, “and let’s sleep. We will make it through this, one way or another.”

I returned to Indian Lake, to the dock where I’d sat last time. The fall colors reflected off the water, a few dark clouds overhead. I noticed a figure on the water, but it never came to me, so I decided to go to it.

I took one step onto the surface of the water, glad to see that it would hold my weight. It was springy, the buoyancy reminding me of walking on a waterbed.

I knew I was dreaming, but that didn’t stop a lump in my throat, an elated feeling in my chest as I walked across the surface of the lake.

I approached the seated figure, recognizing him immediately.

“I don’t think I will make it,” Lhandon said suddenly, his face turning white, more storm clouds appearing above him.

“You can make it,” I said as I lowered to the top of the waves. “Tashi and Roger will come; I know they will. Just stay with me.”

I look to him, tilting my head as I asked, “Are you dreaming?”

“Am I?” Lhandon took a glance around, his eyes bulging for a moment. “What is this place?”

“We’re in Massachusetts.”

The portly monk smiled as a couple ducks landed in the water next to him, the storm clouds behind him starting to dissipate. “Maybe… Maybe I am.”

“You are, we’re at a lake near the city I live in.”

“May I see the city of Massachusetts?” he asked, glancing toward the east.

“Sure,” I told him. “And the city is Worcester, the state is Massachusetts.”

Lhandon lifted into the air, looking down at his hands as he did so. “It’s that easy?” He nodded at his own question. “Yes, of course, it is. We are dreaming. I have had these types of dreams before.”

We rose higher into the air, both of us turning toward Main Street, Sears Island now behind us, the ducks still playing in the water below.

“How fascinating.” Lhandon noticed a red sedan pulling onto a road beneath us. “Your world has mechanical transport?”

“It does, it has mechanical everything, like I told you. But no magic.”

Lhandon laughed. “Yet here we are, flying through your world… You should have more faith in the place you come from, Nick.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I told him as Bancroft Tower came into view. Erected in honor of Admiral Bancroft by a group of his closest friends, the stone tower sat on a hill overlooking a quaint neighborhood.

“You have castles as well?” Lhandon asked as he turned toward the tower.

“No, this was just made to look like a castle. Well, I guess that makes it a castle.”

Lhandon laughed. “Such a fascinating world,” he said as we moved onward, the storm clouds from earlier suddenly gone. The sun reflected off the windows of the glass buildings downtown creating a beautiful sparkle.

We were just beginning to lower to the streets when a pained expression came across Lhandon’s face.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“No!” he shouted, his body cutting in half, entrails spilling out onto the street below.

Lhandon’s body landed on the sidewalk, the lower half of his torso rolling out to the street only to be hit by a car.

I awoke with a gasp, both Lhandon and I partially out of our drawers.

I looked over to see the evil monk Gomchen standing over Lhandon, smiling as one of his henchmen cracked his switch against Lhandon’s bare chest.

The wounds were infected, some of them oozing pus, the skin around his laceration starting to turn purple and black, bloody.

“Let me heal him,” I said, desperation in my voice. “You’re going to kill him!”

“No, no,” Gomchen said, turning his attention to me. “I refuse to believe that such an enlightened monk, one who has his own monastery, an Exalted One even, would die from a light torture such as this. Besides, he should be able to heal himself. Perhaps he won’t heal himself just to show us how much he can suffer. How selfless.”

“He gave his power to me,” I said, all the muscles tensing in my body.

“Then he is a fool,” said Gomchen. “Truly. Feed him.”

Rather than stick the metal tube in, the reptilian guard simply dumped the bucket of fish offal over Lhandon’s face, the portly monk barely putting up a fight.

I knew screaming at them wasn’t going to do anything, and try as I might, I knew I wasn’t going be able to break free from my chains.

I wished at that moment that I had been given a different power, one of strength, one that would let me tear out of my shackles and murder the three Druk men.

The second guard dumped a bucket of cold water over Lhandon’s face. The next bucket they dumped over his chest, washing some of the fish guts out of his wounds.

“Do you still think your friends are going to come?” Gomchen asked me.

“They will, and when they do…”

“Maybe they will arrive tonight,” he said with a laugh as he turned to the exit of the cell. “Which means that you won’t need any food and water. Now come,” the evil monk told the two guards, “and leave them exposed for today. Perhaps it will help air out the Exalted One’s wounds. We can’t have you dying before Sona and Evan arrive.”

They left, my focus immediately shifting to Lhandon. “You have to stay strong…” I started to tell him.

“We… we dreamed together,” Lhandon said, not turning his head to look at me. “You took me to Massachusetts. Thank you.”

He started to drift off.

“Stay with me,” I told him, pulling at my shackles even though I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to reach out to him, that I wasn’t going to be able to break free and heal him. “Stay with me, Lhandon!”

“See you… dream…”

I let out a deep breath, followed by a loud scream, one that shredded my vocal cords.

“Come on, Roger, Tashi,” I whispered, trying to focus on my breathing, to move back to a meditative state. Lhandon hadn’t cast his rune, meaning that I was going to have to go to sleep on my own.

No matter—we needed a plan for what we should do once Sona and Evan came, and this would give me plenty of time to think it through.

I just hoped that Lhandon made it until then, that he would survive this.

If not, there would be hell to pay.

Chapter Thirty: Cold Hands

I didn’t know when I fell asleep, but I definitely recognized the sound that woke me up.

For a moment I thought I had been dreaming, that this was yet another dream in which I was in control, modifying my reality as I saw fit.

Then I heard the grunt again.

I craned my head to the right to see…

“You?” I asked, startled to see the masked lion man.

“And us,” a familiar voice chimed in.

I looked to the left to see two masked lionesses, Roger on one of their shoulders.

“Saruul?” I asked, barely able to get her name out.

She pulled her black mask up to reveal her face, the woman next to her doing the same.

“Let’s get you out of there,” Saruul’s mother said.

“What that hell was happening in here?” Roger asked, taking a quick look around. “It smells worse than a latrine!”

“We need to help Lhandon,” I said, my chest swelling as I tried to contain my excitement.

“Let’s get you out first.”

Saruul and the masked lion man came to either side of my drawer. The man took a ring of keys from the front of his belt, fumbling with it for a moment as he checked the locks. Both of them were wearing the clothing of the reptilian guards, leather armor with engraved images over their chests, a splash of blood across their breastplates.

“Where’s Tashi?” I asked as my last shackle fell, not at all concerned with the fact that I was naked.

“He’s in the village, ready to prepare a distraction once we escape from here,” Dohna explained. “He’ll bring most of the plankways down if he has to.”

“We don’t need to escape; we need to get to one of the ships,” I said.

The masked lion man helped me out of the drawer, my legs wobbly at first, my feet completely numb. I used the wall for support, ignoring the numbness as I traced up Healing Hand.

“Are you seriously thinking of sailing at a time like this?” Roger asked. “The entire village is about to be looking for us…”

I placed my hand on Lhandon’s forehead, still using the wall for support. The monk came awake almost instantly.

“N-Nick?” he asked, his throat parched. His mouth dropped open. “We’re saved!”

“I have water.” I looked to Dohna to see her pulling a bag off her shoulder. I also noticed that she had two blades sheathed at her sides, Saruul armed with just one sword, the hilts of all their weapons polished and sparkling.

My legs still tingling, I continued to focus on healing Lhandon as the masked lion man and Saruul pulled his drawer out from the wall, and Dohna gave him water from a leather bota bag.

“Please, don’t look at me,” Lhandon said, his face turning red with shame. The lashes on his stomach stitched together, the wounds starting to disappear as if someone was erasing them.

“What matters right now is that you are healed,” I said firmly.

“I was really scared,” the portly monk said, swallowing hard. “I was starting to have pretty terrible dreams, dark ones, demons coming for me. How did you get here?” he asked suddenly, looking to Saruul.

“We’ll get to that,” she told him quietly.

Once Lhandon’s other wrist was freed, the masked lion monk helped him out of his confines. I now focused my own healing power on myself, the tingling sensation leaving my legs.

“Please.” Dohna stepped behind me and placed my robes over my shoulders. She also handed me the bota bag, which I readily drank from, the water surprisingly cold.

As soon as I tied off my brown robes, Saruul leaped into my arms, her legs wrapped around me.

“I can’t believe…” she started to say.

“How did you get here?” I asked, repeating what Lhandon had asked earlier.

“It was your ghost, no, double,” Saruul said, correcting herself. “Your double appeared. At first, I thought you were dead. I started screaming, and then Mother came and saw it too. We went to the temple to see what Jigme said. He instructed us to follow the double.”

“And what about you?” I asked Roger, Lhandon now getting dressed.

“Your double came to us while we were secretly trying to check every house in Sarpang, hoping to uncover some information at the time. He started heading out toward the Great Plateau. So we ignored him. Then he came back. And we ignored him again because I’m an idiot; I’ll admit that. Tashi wanted to pay attention to him from the get-go. So then he came back and motioned for us to follow him. So we did. In the end, we didn’t have to go very far once we saw their group moving across the plateau. The doubles merged together, and brought us here.”

“Thank you,” I said to my former opponent, who merely nodded.

“What did he say?” Lhandon asked.

“My double split into two and gathered both parties. Saruul and her mother confirmed with Jigme that they should follow the double, Roger was reluctant at first but eventually, they met up.”

“My word! Two doubles?”

“Double trouble is what I was telling Tashi. And don’t ask me who he is,” Roger said, thumbing his wing over at the masked lion. “He hasn’t said a word since we joined them.”

“Did Jigme know that it wasn’t his actual double, that Nick was alive?” Lhandon asked, the monk still in the process of securing his robes.

“No, he didn’t know,” Dohna said. “But he had read about something like this happening before, and said it was worth investigating. We came as quickly as we could. We’re sorry it took us…”

“You came through the Great Plateau,” I told her. “Having just done that, you made record time. Believe me.”

“Perhaps we could have come faster,” Saruul said, bowing her head in apology toward Lhandon.

“All that matters now is that we are free,” Lhandon told her.

“Who did this to you?” Roger asked me. “Was it someone we know?”

“It is someone that Lhandon and I know, a Druk monk named Gomchen. He was with Sona when she attacked the monastery.”

“Well fuck that guy, and we don’t need a fortune teller in our group to know what will happen if I ever run into the bastard. I’m talking knife in the eye over here.”

“We should go,” Dohna said, “but before we do, what were you saying earlier about taking a ship?”

“What time is it?” I asked her.

“Four hours past the start of the new day,” she said. “Why?”

“We would be getting there a little early, but it should work,” I said. “I met a woman whose family runs a ship that leaves for the Island Kingdom of Jonang every morning. Her name is Tsegi. She seemed reliable and she claimed to have a no questions asked policy.”

“Is that what you want?” Saruul asked.

“We didn’t make it all the way to Sarpang to give up now.”

“We should hurry then,” Dohna said.

“And I need to get my Flaming Thunderbolt back,” I told them with finality, “and my Fist of Force ring.”

“All of our stuff was taken,” Lhandon added. “Including the black pearl that the Exonerated One left behind. But don’t worry, I have a plan for that. And I’m so lucky I left many of my things in Dornod, including the letters from the Eternal Hermit. That would have been disastrous!”

Dohna shook her head. “It’s too risky to try to get anything back now. We haven’t been discovered yet, and there’s no telling where your stuff is, nor do we know just how connected Gomchen is in the city. I believe the best thing to do is to leave it for now.”

The masked lion man grunted in agreement.

“Leave it?” I exchanged glances with Lhandon, who merely nodded. “But…”

“Nick, the most important thing we can do now is get out of here,” Saruul said as she pulled her mask back over her head.

She turned to the door, the lion man and her mother joining her. Lhandon was the next to join them, Roger settling on my shoulder.

“Where are we anyway?” I asked, instantly regretting not going after my weapon. “We haven’t been able to figure it out.”

“We’re in one of the buildings built into the cliffside, in the basement. It is a private residence. Three stories tall. The bridge that connects to the main plankway is on the second floor,” Dohna explained as we made our way out of the cell, past two downed guards in the stairwell. These ones still wore their armor, and I assumed Saruul, her mother, and the masked lion had stripped their gear from another group.

We encountered that second group on the next floor up, where we came across three dead bodies with their armor missing.

Our group was moving too quickly for me to really pay attention to my surroundings, but I did notice that everything had been cut into the stone, including a nook with seating carved in the wall, tapestries hanging around it.

We reached the other end of the first floor; Roger flew up to check the next floor, making sure we were clear to move on, whistling at us when he was certain.

The next floor up featured a nicely arranged living room with an incredibly long carpet reaching all the way to the door at the other side. There was a smell in the air that reminded me of incense, with an earthy hint to it, as if the heat of the day had warmed up the stone walls.

Even though the windows were closed and decorated with dark stained-glass images, we still kept a low profile as we moved toward the exit.

As we reached the front door, Lhandon accidentally bumped his leg against a wooden cart, causing a glass to fall and shatter against the carpet.

“Sorry…” he said, bringing his hands to his mouth.

The masked lion man crouched next to the door, Dohna doing the same on the other side.

Perched at the window now, Roger pressed his eye against the darkened glass, trying to look out, giving up once he realized it was too murky for him to actually see anything on the other side.

“Take this,” Dohna told me as she handed me one of her swords. “Trade me.”

She motioned toward the bag I was carrying, the one she’d had earlier. I gave it to her, Dohna slipping it over one shoulder.

“Some of us have to cross the Great Plateau again,” she said, turning her attention to Saruul.

“I’m going with Nick,” Saruul said suddenly, a lump appearing in her throat.

Her mother nodded. “I know you are. I’m talking about him and me,” she said, tilting her head at the masked lion man, who replied with another grunt.

“You’re coming with us?” I asked as Saruul let out a sigh of relief.

“There is absolutely no way I’m letting you two get into this situation again. Had I been there…” The front of her mask twitched. “I would have done something. It would have been a lot more difficult to poison you.”

“This is great,” Lhandon said, “I’m sure your skills will come in handy in Jonang.”

“I’m so glad you’re coming with us,” I said, feeling the urge to hug her and simultaneously realizing that we were in a fatal funnel situation here: either we were going to run out of the door and no one would be waiting for us, or the exact opposite was about to happen.

“So we’re supposed to go toward the docks, and look for this lady that runs a ship, right?” Roger asked.

“Tsegi, her name is Tsegi,” I told him.

“Short for Battsegseg?”

“How… how did you know that?”

“I went to one of the best bird schools in Lhasa, Nick, I’ve told you this before. And another thing—”

“I will help you,” Saruul told Roger, cutting his rant short. “I can morph; it’ll make me faster.”

“Somehow I don’t think the snake folks around here are going to like seeing a lion running toward them…”

“No, this is a good idea,” Dohna said.

“Give me my sword back, and you take Saruul’s,” she told me.

After I presented the weapon to Dohna, I took Saruul’s sword and hooked its scabbard to my belt.

Dohna turned her attention to her daughter. “I’m going to miss you,” she said suddenly, coming forward and placing her hand on the side of Saruul’s head.

“I will miss you as well, Mother.”

They touched their foreheads together.

“Remember, the woman’s name was Tsegi,” I told Saruul once their moment had ended. She took off the armor they’d stripped from one of the guards, letting it drop onto the floor.

“Tsegi, got it.”

“Short for Battsegseg, and I don’t see any fire out there,” Roger said, his eye pressed against the dark windowpane again.

“Tashi will know when it is right to attack,” Dohna assured him. “Remember, he was a treasure hunter, and even though he has atoned for his sins and given up his former life, he still maintains the cunning nature of one of these hunters.”

“And what about Tashi anyway?” Roger asked me.

“Once we reach the ship, you can fly to him and lead him back to us, unless you’re planning something else?”

“No, that sounds about right,” Roger said.

“Is everyone ready?” Dohna asked.

I looked from Lhandon to Saruul, who was now morphed into a snow lioness. “Let’s do this.”

The masked lion man was the first to press out of the door. I heard the thwip of an arrow, the man expertly batting it away with his sword.

We had been discovered.

Dohna was the next to go. She turned to her daughter once more, nodding before slipping out of the door.

Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

“We’re up next!” Roger told Saruul in her lion form, both of them charging out.

Lhandon and I were the last to exit the private residence.

As we ran along the bridge connecting the stone home to the plankway, Dohna and the masked man provided cover for us, cutting away the arrows being fired from the other side of the bridge.

Once the Druk guards realized that wasn’t going to work, they charged us, a few of them blown back by a rune cast by the masked lion man.

The docks were to the right. I started to shift my trajectory toward that direction, yelling for Lhandon to stay behind me.

We were going to have to fight our way through, and just as I was bringing Saruul’s sword up to the ready, a comet-sized fireball slammed into the group of guards awaiting us.

Tashi had made his appearance.

The spirit tore into their ranks, a terrible inferno raging around him, the men crying out as their leather armor caught fire.

One of the braver guards tried to engage me, our blades meeting.

I managed to parry his second strike, delivering a blow to his side body. It cut deep enough to wound him, giving me enough time to move past.

A reptilian man with blue plumes burning off his body fell in front of me.

I stepped around the burning man, looking over my shoulder to make sure Lhandon was still with me.

He nodded, and we continued.

Another man with his entire upper body on fire ran past us and jumped over the boardwalk, hoping to get closer to the water below.

I could see our exit point; the guards that weren’t on fire were either engaging our companions or trying to help those who were burning.

With the path ahead clear, I turned back once more to see Dohna, Tashi, and the masked lion man taking on the Druk guards, moving the fight away from us.

Dohna locked eyes with me and I gave her the thumbs-up, and in that gesture, I thanked her for everything, for her training, for saving Lhandon and me, for raising such an amazing daughter and allowing her to journey to the Island Kingdom of Jonang with us.

Lhandon and I continued toward the docks.

“Keep up!” I told him, the monk a few steps behind me. The lights in some of the homes were starting to come on as people heard the commotion.

“It feels so wonderful to be outside!” Lhandon said, sucking in deep breaths as he ran. “To breathe fresh air.”

“Agreed!”

We turned in the direction of the ships, following their masts to the docks. I wanted to get off the main thoroughfare, but I also didn’t want to get stuck in an alley, or run into a potential dead end.

Luckily, the further we got away from the fight, the easier it became to keep to the shadows, to the cover of night.

Sights and sounds were coming to me, smells too. The metallic scent of fish in the air struck me; the squawk of the seagulls overhead momentarily caught my attention.

We were going to make it.

And about as soon as this thought skipped across my mind, just about at the point that I was starting to feel optimistic, something zoomed over our shoulders.

I skidded to a halt, Lhandon nearly colliding with my back as a man seated on a black cloud hovered before us, a blue energy radiating off his form.

“I didn’t expect this,” Gomchen said as he hopped to the ground, the black cloud dissipating. “But I should have been better prepared, I should have known someone was coming for you. Perhaps I should have even listened to your warning. Perhaps.”

“Get behind me, Lhandon!”

Gomchen withdrew my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, the flames adding light to our surroundings, and casting terrible shadows across his reptilian face. “But it doesn’t matter now.”

I brought Saruul’s sword up, taking a deep breath in as I did so and visualizing the switch that activated my power.

It appeared, but as it did, the evil monk charged forward, not swatting at me with his sword, but throwing a fist to my face instead, his strike going wide and hitting me in the shoulder.

The Fist of Force power sent me flying into the outer wall of someone’s home, a piece of the clay roof falling onto my head and shoulders, dust kicking up into the air as I lost Saruul’s blade.

“It is not my intention to kill you,” Gomchen said as he approached me, flames licking off my former weapon. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t do something about your means of escape.”

I rolled to the side just in time to avoid having my leg cut off.

Gomchen was about to strike me again when I mentally hit the switch, time coming to a complete standstill.

I looked left to see Lhandon crouched as if he were about to pounce. Gomchen was precariously close to me, my Flaming Thunderbolt held overhead, illuminating the darkness around him.

Had my power not activated, the evil monk would have certainly struck me with my own sword.

I knew that I didn’t have long to react, so the first thing I did was step aside, and I would have pried my sword free from his hand too had time not sped back to its normal pace, Gomchen colliding with the wall.

I started to visualize the switch again, Gomchen turning and conjuring a rune that swept me off my feet as a gust of wind blew past me.

The evil monk approached me and lowered my blade so it was inches away from my face, the flames piping hot against my skin.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” and just as these words left his lips, Lhandon slammed into him, Gomchen losing the Flaming Thunderbolt.

Everything stopped, even though I hadn’t mentally triggered my ability.

I saw my sword sideways in the air just about to do a complete spin.

Stepping over to it, I reached up and grabbed my weapon in the way one would pluck a book from a high shelf, my brain starting to boil inside my skull from using my power.

Time returned to its normal pace, Lhandon and Gomchen crashing into a roadside stand.

The evil monk let out a gasp.

As I came to Lhandon’s aid I saw a tendril of frost moving across Gomchen’s face, icy blue energy rippling around Lhandon’s hands as the evil monk’s nostrils flaring, his dark eyes locked on Lhandon as they turned azure, a wicked smile stretching across his cheeks as his skin froze.

“Let me finish him,” I told Lhandon.

“No,” he said, a coldness to his voice I’d never heard before. “This is karma I can afford to bear.”

Gomchen opened his mouth, letting out his final breath, the back of his head hitting the wooden boardwalk.

“Take your ring,” Lhandon said as he got to his feet, not making eye contact with me.

We both stood there for a moment, an awkward silence stretching between us.

I found my ring on Gomchen’s dead body and twisted it onto my finger.

“Ready?” he asked.

I sheathed both Saruul’s blade and my Flaming Thunderbolt, and quickly affixed them to my belt. “Let’s go.”

I noticed that my shoulder was sore, and I would have healed it too, had I not already used my power for the day.

It didn’t matter.

We were almost there.

Lhandon and I ran again, the sound of the ocean growing stronger, the ships looming into view.

We were just about to reach the dock when Roger lowered, the tropical bird flapping his turquoise wings rapidly. “We found the ship! We found the ship! Saruul’s waiting out front. I’ll go get Tashi.” The bird gave both of us a curious look. “Is everything okay?”

I glanced between Roger and Lhandon, my hand still on my shoulder. “Yes, we’ll meet you there.”

Lhandon and I continued forward, the ground beneath us a little less sturdy than it had been when we weren’t directly over the water.

I could feel the sway of the dock now, and had we not been trying to escape, I would have enjoyed this moment, the magnificent ships on the water, the stars twinkling in the sky, dawn upon us.

I saw Saruul and waved at her. As I approached, I removed her sheath from my belt, handing the lioness her weapon.

“You got your sword back?”

“It’s a long story,” I told her as I placed my hand on the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom. “But yes. And thank God.”

“Thank all the gods,” Lhandon said solemnly.

Tsegi stood next to Saruul, a concerned look on her face. “The less I know about what has transpired, the better. Also, you are lucky that I am here. My sister is taking care of my son over the next few days; I don’t normally volunteer for this post.”

“It is wonderful to meet you,” Lhandon stepped in front of me and bowed, the cold-handed monk from earlier no longer present. “We appreciate you providing us passage. The karma you will reap from this event alone…”

Tsegi smirked. “Save it, Monk. The only karma I am looking to cultivate is one of a financial nature.”

“I see,” Lhandon said, clearing his throat. “All of our money was stolen…”

“Take my sword,” Saruul said suddenly, brandishing her weapon. “The hilt is made of pure lion’s gold, parts of the scabbard too. I believe that it’s worth something down here at sea level.”

“Real lion’s gold?” Tsegi asked as she took the sheathed blade from Saruul. The Druk woman examined it for a moment, an indecipherable look on her face.

“It’s real,” Saruul assured her. “On my father’s grave. Actually, the blade once belonged to him.”

“You don’t have to…” I started to tell her.

“It’s just a weapon,” she told me.

“Your father’s weapon, huh? I just so happen to know that this blade is worth much more than a trip to the Island Kingdom,” Tsegi finally told us, “but, considering we need to leave now, and that we may miss out on a few passengers because of our early departure, this will have to suffice.”

Still holding onto the weapon, the Druk woman stepped aside, motioning for the three of us to come onto the ship. “Hurry.”

We walked along a plank where we came onto the main deck, Tsegi quickly leading us down to the hold. There were other men on board, all preparing for the journey and paying little attention to our motley group.

“Do you see those barrels at the back?” Tsegi asked once we were in the hold, just after Lhandon’s hand illuminated the dark space.

“You don’t want us to get in them, do you?” the monk asked, his brow furrowing.

“No, certainly not. They are false barrels; the middle one is actually a door that leads to a secret compartment in the hull of the ship. This is where you will stay until I tell you otherwise. Will it just be you three? Or is the bird returning?”

“He should be here soon,” I told her, “along with a fire spirit.”

Tsegi started to laugh. “A fire spirit on a wooden ship? You must be joking. That’s going to cost you another sword, and you will still have to ask permission from the captain, who just so happens to be my father.”

“He’s a well-behaved fire spirit,” Lhandon assured her. “I guess it’s a little demeaning to say it like that, but he won’t catch anything on fire, that I can promise you.”

“And he will stay in a bottle if you provide one for him,” I added.

“Will he now?” Tsegi mulled my statement over for a moment. “There are plenty of bottles around here…”

“Guys!” Roger flew into the hold, nearly colliding with Tsegi.

“Hey!” the woman shouted, batting him away.

“Sorry!” Roger landed in front of me. “What are we waiting for?” he asked, hopping around. “Someone whip the slaves below, let’s get this ship moving!”

“This is not a slave ship,” Tsegi said, shaking her head at Roger.

“Where’s Tashi?” Lhandon asked.

“Yeah, about that, he’s not going to make it, not that he’s dead or anything. Nick, just translate this: Lion Mama and Lion Ninja need some help escaping, and Tashi is that help,” Roger said, catching his breath. “Plus, he can aid them in the Great Plateau. He told me to return to the ship, for us to leave without him. We’ll catch back up with him when we return to Dornod.”

I quickly relayed the message to the monk.

“How selfless of him,” Lhandon said with wonder in his eyes. “He truly is an inspiration to us all!”

“So no fire spirit?” Tsegi asked. “Because if not, it would be best for us to get moving. Go to the barrels at the back of the hold, like I said. Look for the one in the middle with a chip on its outer rim. It opens like a door, smooth too.”

We did as instructed, Lhandon quickly finding the barrel in question. He slowly opened it up, revealing a rather large compartment cut into the hull, the space illuminated by his runic power. “I believe it’s…” he nodded as if he were having a conversation to himself. “Yes, it should be large enough for prostrations.”

“Wait, we have to stay in there?” Roger asked, looking back toward the open doorway. “Because that’s not what I signed up for.”

“Having second thoughts?” I asked him.

“I’m always having second thoughts,” the bird said as he flew into the secret compartment. “It comes with being well-educated.”

Saruul was next to enter, the beautiful lioness lightly tapping me with her tail.

“Good,” Tsegi said after I finally made my way into the secret compartment. She stood at the front of the barrel now, ready to shut it. “Just stay down here until I tell you otherwise. It might get a little choppy out there, but the four of you are safe for now, and I guess that’s what matters.”

She shut the door, and I heard a lock click into place.

“And you are sure you trust this woman?” Saruul asked, turning to me.

“We don’t really have a choice now.”

“We’ll be fine,” Lhandon said. “We can meditate together.”

“Or sleep,” Roger said. “Not sleep together. Dammit. Nick, you know what I mean,” he said as he fell onto his side.

I took a seat on the floor, finally able to rest, finally able to catch my breath.

Saruul sat next to me, resting her head on my shoulder.

“Are you happy I came along?” she asked me privately.

“Incredibly.”

“Good.”

“How’s sea level treating you?”

She shrugged. “Not great, but I’ll get used to it.”

It wasn’t long before the ship began to move, the loud sound of something shifting beneath the water echoing through our chamber, the men crying out as they prepared to sail.

I closed my eyes and focused on my breath.

The journey that felt like it would never end, had truly just begun.

The end.

Back of the Book

Reader,

Thank you for reading and reviewing Way of the Immortals Book Two. Without your support, this series wouldn’t be possible. If you haven’t already reviewed the first book, which is the book that kickstarted the adventure, please do so as well.

Bonus points if you review both! And rest assured, book three will be out soon (or it may be out by the time you read this!). Without your reviews, Way of the Immortals would have never hit:

#1 Asian Mythology

#1 Metaphysical Science Fiction

#1 College/New Age Fiction

#1 Spiritual Science Fiction

#1 Contemporary Fantasy

So thank you. Reviews drive book sales nowadays, and your support is truly appreciated.

Inspirations

Books don’t exist in a vacuum, and the things that happen in mine are generally inspired by something I have either experienced, something I have read or consumed via other media forms, or something a person has told me with names and situations changed to protect the innocent.

Nick’s training came from something that a person told me. I once worked at a coffee shop, let’s call it McStarbucks (extra bonus points if you’ve read any of my Proxima Galaxy books), and my coworker claimed to have once been a ninja.

I mean, who hasn’t?

Anyway, he told me that he started getting heavy into the practice of martial arts once he met a fairly powerful teacher, and that the teacher would arrange for him to have battles at basketball courts and other city parks during the wee hours of the night. My friend said that he would wake up early in the morning, dress in all black including a mask, and then go to the agreed-upon location, where an opponent would appear.

They would then spar.

This was exactly how I envisioned the training sessions Nick experienced. Unlike with Nick, my coworker’s story with his training didn’t end with him hooking up with a beautiful snow lioness, especially after his teacher told him he wanted to my coworker kill someone. My friend refused, and his teacher proceeded to beat the living hell out of him, my friend narrowly escaping through a window.

I thought he was lying to me at the time. At one point I tested him on his story after a suspicious looking customer came in. I told my friend, who was in the breakroom, that a guy was there looking for him, that he looked like a dude who knew martial arts.

Rather than burst out laughing, my friend got pretty upset, panicky for a moment as he checked the security camera to make sure that it wasn’t his former teacher.

So I’m pretty sure it was real. Unless he was pulling my leg all along, my friend clairvoyant enough to know that I would need that scene for a book almost twenty years later.

Other inspirations and meditation

A lot of the scenery in this book came from narratives of Tibet, most notably Way of the White Clouds by Lama Anagarika Govinda. The structure of the Path of the Divine was partially conceived after listening to Running with the Mind of Meditation, by Sakyong Mipham, which was narrated by the same narrator doing the Way of the Immortals series, Neil Hellegers. It was recommended to me by him, and I’m grateful for his recommendation as it really has helped me conceive and hone what the system should look like, especially with my desire to stay true to the conventional styling associated with Mahayana Buddhist practices.

There was mention of trance-walking in this volume, and I figured it was worth mentioning again.

There are two or three sources out there that have seen trance-walking in action in Tibet.

One comes from Alexandra David-Neel and her book, Magic and Mystery in Tibet. To summarize, she was crossing a great plateau, ahem, along with a caravan when they saw a cloud of dust coming their way. She asked what it was, and they told her to step aside, to not distract the person.

A man zoomed past, floating just a few inches above the ground. David-Neel also described another encounter with a man who wore heavy chains, presumably to keep him grounded.

This account was later recalled in Lama Anagarika Govinda’s aforementioned book, Way of the White Clouds, which details the German-born Buddhist’s journey to Tibet in the 1950s. He recaps what David-Neel wrote, and adds some additional details from a British bureaucrat he had met in India, who had also witnessed this feat.

While Govinda didn’t witness someone trance-walking himself, he did visit some of the monasteries where this skill was practiced.

His accounts of the monasteries are fascinating. Anonymity was a part of the meditation process, so after a person was sealed inside a meditation chamber, not only was their identity kept from the public, it was also kept from most of the monks, the meditator wearing gloves when he took his daily food through a slot beneath the door.

Trance-walking got me thinking about other meditative practices, from generation of inner warmth, or tumo, to silent meditation and long retreats. As I mentioned in the first installment of Way of the Immortals, there is still a country out there where hermits are funded by the government to meditate, and that country is Bhutan. But it isn’t the only place that has had stringent meditation and rituals and hermitages.

In the summer of 2012, I visited the Gobi Desert in Mongolia with a French friend of mine named Veronique, (and yes, for those of you that have read Cherry Blossom Girls, I named one of the characters after).

We went to what the locals called an energy center (Hamarin Hiid Energiin Tov), which was near some of the caves that monks used as hermitages.

Here’s a picture I took of some of them:

I remember wondering at the time what it would be like to actually take a long retreat in one of the caves, the desert all around you with its intense heat and wicked cold nights.

I suppose this has been one advantage of writing this series for me.

Not only do people seem to enjoy it, but I emphatically enjoy doing the research for it, and revisiting some of these places that I have been. Oddly enough, and almost apropos, writing this book has kickstarted a pretty healthy meditation habit for me as well.

From around 2008 to 2010, I dabbled in meditation and other spiritual practices while doing my best to keep Austin, Texas weird.

Strangely enough, moving to Asia halted many of these practices, and even while I was experiencing these things, and visiting these amazing holy places, I was no longer practicing.

But this series has gotten me back in the habit.

I am up to twenty or thirty minutes a night, I’ve been going to meditation class, I’m planning a silent retreat next year, and it really has brought joy to my life. It is also amazing how hard meditation is! I can sit and watch a Netflix show, or play video games, for an hour and half and not think anything of it. But sitting for twenty minutes in my office on a cushion takes an incredible amount of willpower.

But it’s getting easier, and I’m starting to really enjoy some of the benefits of it, from a more relaxed demeanor to being able to pause better and reflect. I have cheated some, using meditation just so I can plot, as I’m a very visual writer, but I try not to do that too often. I attempt to divvy it up some as well, doing Buddhist meditations, or YouTube guided meditations, or simply listening to meditation music. Recently, I meditated listening to the new Freddie Gibbs/Madlib album, Bandana, which blew my mind.

All this to say: the resources are all out there, and even now that I’ve gotten used to it, that I’ve been at it again for a couple months as of October 2019, it is still sometimes hard to find time to just sit there.

Weird how that works.

Life’s a Gas

Finally, what installment of Way of the Immortals would be complete without something from our Bhutanese divine madman, Drukpa Kunley? If you couldn’t tell, the long poem that the skeleton says to Nick and company before trying to kill them is a direct quote from Drukpa Kunley, which you can read in the only novel in English written about him.

I also named the madman in our book after this famous monk, and his nickname, Flatulence of a Dragon, was stripped from a line from the book about him. To set it up, Drukpa wasn’t really good with religious authority, and after visiting a monastery in which they judge him heavily, he left them a little present. Here is the paragraph from the book:

He [Drukpa Kunley] walked to the middle of the assembly hall and broke wind like a dragon. “Take your chunk, please,” he said to the monks and the whole room was filled with the pleasant odor. The young novices giggled, while the elders cover their noses and frowned. Since that time, the back rows of the assembly hall have had a holy smell to them, or the front rows of the elders are never reached by the scent of incense.

I believe that is probably the best way to end this back of the book section. In the next one, maybe I will talk about going to find the green tire reincarnation and Western Mongolia, or trying to use salvia to better my meditation practice and ending up with a near out of body experience.

I probably should talk about that last one. Either way, I will try to make it interesting and enlightening, and until that time, thanks for your reviews and thanks for reading along.

Harmon Cooper

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Other Books by Harmon Cooper

I have written over thirty books. Here are some of the highlights!

A man becomes the grim reaper and introduces game mechanics to the role. DO NOT miss this book.

https://geni.us/DeathsMantle

Hate your job. Win the lottery. Get a superpower. House of Dolls.

https://geni.us/HouseofDolls

My best-selling Superhero Harem Adventure about a sci-fi writer and the superpowered women who are trying to kill him. Fun content, adult read!

https://geni.us/CherryBlossomGirls1

A fantasy harem adventure inspired by Pokemon Go!, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and the Persona family of video games. Check out this Amazon best seller!

https://geni.us/MonsterHuntNYC

What if Ready Player One was a multi-part epic? Gritty LitRPG action, gamer humor, fantastic fantasy worlds, and a killer MC.

(This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)

https://geni.us/TheLoop

If you love dark fantasy, RPGs, Witcher, Punisher, or Mad Max, you'll love this powerful gamer trilogy about a man and his wolf companion.

https://geni.us/LastWarrior

Tokyo, Japan meets online fantasy gaming and South Park-styled humor. Yakuza, goblins, action, intrigue - add this book to your inventory list!

(This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)

https://geni.us/FICK

Table of Contents

- Book One Recap
- Stages of the Path of the Divine
- Chapter One: Safe Haven
- Chapter Two: Hermits and Ice Spirits
- Chapter Three: Hermit Transmission
- Chapter Four: The Inevitable
- Chapter Five: Flight After Fight
- Chapter Six: Birds of a Feather
- Chapter Seven: Say My Name
- Chapter Eight: Dornod
- Chapter Nine: Snow Lion Hospitality
- Chapter Ten: Midnight Fighter

- Chapter Eleven: Lhandon’s First Transmission

- Chapter Twelve: Winter Moon Festival
- Chapter Thirteen: Wrestling with Ego
- Chapter Fourteen: Angelic Revelations
- Chapter Fifteen: Fight like a Snow Lion
- Chapter Sixteen: Plans of Departure
- Chapter Seventeen: Visualization
- Chapter Eighteen: Reunion
- Chapter Nineteen: A Journey Begins
- Chapter Twenty: Sand
- Chapter Twenty-One: Demons on the Plateau
- Chapter Twenty-Two: Thieves and Meditations

- Chapter Twenty-Three: Flatulence of a Dragon

- Chapter Twenty-Four: Bead Work
- Chapter Twenty-Five: Soup in Sarpang
- Chapter Twenty-Six: Gomchen

- Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dungeon Hallucinations

- Chapter Twenty-Eight: Awful Fish Offal
- Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Monk in Worcester
- Chapter Thirty: Cold Hands
- Back of the Book