“I don’t have a power, do you?”
“I do,” he said, a smile taking shape on his face. “I am indestructible.”
“And that’s how you got this position?” I asked, taking a step closer to him. “I never really saw you as the emperor-type. A liberator, sure, but this doesn’t really fit who you were back in our world.”
“He’s clearly possessed,” Roger said, a little louder this time. “You see that, right? Look at his eyes, they keep flashing red…”
“Does your bird talk to you?” Hugo asked, tilting his head toward Roger.
“He does, but I don’t understand him,” I lied.
“I don’t see the purpose of traveling with this creature then, unless you like having a pet. You didn’t seem to be very fond of pets back home, at least from what I can remember.”
“Dude, can we drop all the weird shit?” I asked, motioning my hand around the room. “It’s you and me now, man. We are two guys from America, from Massachusetts. I know that this world is crazy, and I’m sure you’ve seen some pretty wild things, as have I, but it’s you and me. So let’s cut all this bullshit out.”
Hugo shifted in his chair, the eyes on his crown glowing as he looked me over. “What are you suggesting, Nick?”
“First of all, you aren’t a king. I mean, you are now, but this isn’t you; I’m not talking to the Hugo that I grew up with. Whatever this is,” I said, gesturing toward him, “it’s not you.”
“You don’t know a single thing about who I am now,” he said, still calm, but with a hint of agitation to his voice now.
We were both silent for a moment, staring each other down.
“How did you get here?” I asked him.
“Why are you wearing monk’s robes? And what monk walks around with a sword at his waist?” Hugo smiled at me. “That isn’t a very holy thing to do.”
“I’m not a monk.”
“Then are you an animal handler? You don’t have a lion with you, do you? Perhaps a female lion…”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to hide my surprise.
“Recently, my men were attacked at a rest stop between here and Anand. Before they took their own lives to honor how poorly they had fared against their assailants, a message was delivered to me. It said that my men were attacked by a monk and a woman who could turn into a lion.”
“They didn’t say anything about a bird?” Roger shook his head. “Figures.”
“They also said that the monk had a sword made of fire. Do you have a sword made of fire?”
I placed my hand on the hilt of my weapon, withdrawing it a little from its scabbard, flames licking off it.
“How peculiar.”
“I don’t find anything strange about it,” I told him. “We live in a magical world now; there could be any number of monks running around with fire swords.”
Hugo laughed. “You still have the ability to be sarcastic when you should be respectful, interesting.”
“Respectful of what?”
“You said yourself that I am a king, which is just another word for what I actually am, an emperor. Most of the people in this land, if not all of them, choose to show me respect when they are lucky enough to meet me. Those that don’t, well, I’m sure you’ve encountered a few of them by this point.”
“Fuck you, man,” I said, keeping my hand on the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt. “What the hell do you think you’re going around doing anyway? What’s the point in treating people like that? What have these people ever done to you?”
“Nick, you have not seen the things that I’ve seen,” he said, his voice growing soft. “One of the biggest issues our country had when I was overseas was that we didn’t rule with an iron fist. No, there were too many rules we had to follow, protocols, that sort of thing. I won’t bore you with the details. We wouldn’t have had to deal with any of that had we been ruthless. And that’s what I’ve introduced here to the Island Kingdom of Jonang. Worship and respect my power and the rule of law, and you will be fine. Go against me, and you and your family will suffer immensely.”
“This isn’t you,” I said, as Roger cursed under his breath.
“It is me now,” Hugo told me. “I came to these shores, and I worked all the way up to be Emperor of the land. And I did so in a relatively short amount of time. Don’t you see, Nick?”
He nodded at a long wooden table, maps scrawled out over it.
“There are five kingdoms here, and I’ve already conquered one. Once I have enough soldiers trained and an improved fleet has been built, I will conquer another. It is who I am. It is what I have been put here to do, to possess as much of this world as I can, to grow stronger in the process, and to bring rule of law to these unruly fools.”
“We should start looking for an exit,” Roger said. “This isn’t going to end well…”
Hugo stood.
“And then what?” I asked him. “If you are able actually to do that, then what? You will die like the rest of us. You know that, right? If we don’t get out of this world, we will be cycled into its rebirth system, and considering what you’ve already done, you will end up in the Underworld. Do you really want to know what that is like? Because I have met several entities from the Underworld who have become spirits here, hoping to develop enough karma to have a better rebirth, to atone for their sins. Is that what you want?”
“You really have become a monk, haven’t you?”
“No, I’m me,” I told him. “These are things that I’ve seen, and witnessed. If we just talk about this, we could go over what we both have experienced here. I’m sure some of the things are similar, but my path, as you can see, has pushed me toward one of the five main religions here. It’s not that I am a hundred percent in agreement with it, but I have witnessed what happens in this world if you do things that are vile. And you wouldn’t like what happens. You may be powerful up until the day you die, but after that…”
“Their religion and all of their ideas are basically recycled concepts of Eastern philosophies, brought by the original Immortals. None of it is true.”
Roger hopped closer to my ear. “He’s not going to listen to you, Nick. We should try to get out of here.”
“No, it is true,” I said, feeling the blood rush to my face as my voice grew louder, my heart fluttering in my chest. “I have met beings from the Underworld and the Overworld. It is entirely true. Hell, I met with one just a few days ago here on this island. I have been attacked by evil spirits from the Underworld, and I have been attacked by demons that have somehow managed to stay here on this plane.”
“You know what this is coming to, right, Nick?” Hugo asked as he cracked his knuckles.
“What?” I asked, not quite sure of where he was going with this.
“By the way you are standing with your hand on the hilt of your weapon, and the tone you have chosen to take with me, it is clear that you are challenging me.”
“Challenging you?”
“It will be some time before the next Moon Tournament, but I believe the Emperor is allowed to accept a challenger for his throne any time he sees fit. In that case, I accept your challenge, Nick.”
“I don’t want your throne,” I told him. “I want you to be reasonable, Hugo. We’ve known each other for a really long time, man. What is this? Do you want to be some crazy king slaughtering your way across an island? That’s not who you are! Wake the fuck up, Hugo. You are my friend, and this is all bullshit!”
“Is that all you would like to say? Are you ready to challenge me?” he asked, an energy swelling over his shoulders and down to his fists.
“I’m not going to fight you, Hugo. That’s not why I came here. I came here to find you! I don’t want your throne; I don’t want to rule this kingdom. I don’t want to rule any of these kingdoms. I want to…”
“You want to what?”
“I haven’t decided yet. But one thing I want to do is figure out a way to go back to our world, if it’s a possibili
ty. Maybe I will go,” I said, my words now coming to me faster than I could process them. “But I want to help make that option available to you, and Bobby, and Tom if he’s alive.”
“And Evan?”
“Evan betrayed me,” I said, swallowing hard. “He is working for the enemy now; I really don’t know how many soldiers he has with him or anything, but I am assuming he has a pretty good number.”
“So you wouldn’t allow him to go back to our world?”
“I haven’t really thought of that,” I told him honestly. “Evan is actively trying to kill me, so…”
“Then he is in Lhasa?” Hugo asked, bringing his fists up.
“He is, but…”
“Lhasa is a much larger continent, and we were planning to sail toward the other Island Kingdom first, but if Evan is in Lhasa…” Hugo shrugged. “I never liked the guy anyway. But I suppose I can figure out those details later. Are you ready, Nick?”
“I’m not going to fight you,” I said, and to make my point I pressed my Flaming Thunderbolt down into its scabbard, the weapon clinking.
“If you aren’t going to fight me, then you leave me no other choice.”
“Be reasonable, Hugo,” I told him. “This isn’t you.”
“Nick, I never want to see you again,” he said, his fists still at the ready. “I’m going to give you two, no, one hour to get out of the city. In one hour, I will have my guards go to every home, government building, business, and monastery in the city looking for you. I will send seagulls to all the outposts across the island, telling them to engage if they see you, that you are a hostile enemy who has attempted to kill their Emperor. I’m doing this because you were once my friend. I wouldn’t give anyone else a head start. Don’t say anything. This is my ultimatum, and this conversation is over. I would suggest making your way to the Port of Sor and taking the first ship out of here if I were you, because if I, or any of my men, ever see you again, you are dead. Dead to all the worlds, Nick.”
Chapter Fourteen: Faith
I was glad Roger was there. What Hugo had said had drilled down to my very core; a former friend now turned enemy.
And soon to turn hunter.
If it wasn’t for Roger on my shoulder snapping me out of my confusion, I may have never made it out of the palace. I may have just stood there with my mouth agape, not certain of what I should do next, running out the clock. But Roger intervened, squawking in my ear and yelling for me to run.
And it was only when he mentioned Lhandon and Saruul that I was able to get a hold of myself enough to act.
I didn’t want this to fall onto them.
No words were exchanged between Hugo and I as I turned and started jogging, two of his red guards keeping up with me as I burst into the courtyard filled with military equipment, as I made it to the front gate, and from there toward the Temple of Ocean Sky.
Again it was because of Roger that I was able to locate the temple at all, the bird lifting into the air, spotting the temple, and then coming back down to guide me toward it.
I practically burst through the sliding front door that led to Lhandon’s room, startling the meditating monk.
“Where’s Saruul?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest, a bewildered look on my face.
“I believe she went to a market…”
“We have to go now,” I said, sucking in deep gulps of air. “We have one hour to leave the city, and then Hugo is going to sic all of his guards on us.”
Lhandon gasped. “Leave the city? Where should we go?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead. He suggested we go to the Port of Sor, that we find the first ship out of here. You said that Tsegi was there right?”
“Wait, you are actually thinking of running?” Roger asked me. “Nick, snap the fuck out of it. You are actually thinking of running, right?”
“I don’t want any harm to come to any of you,” I said, still focused on Lhandon. “This is between me and him, I don’t want it to affect…”
“Nick, we are all in this together now. If Hugo comes after you, he comes after us. We will stand by your side,” the monk said as he got to his feet. “I believe Saruul will be back any minute now. I will pack my things in the meantime, and I suggest you do the same.”
“But…” I shook my head, my thoughts starting to settle.
Of course, this wasn’t over. Of course, I didn’t need to run.
Roger had been right all along: a confrontation between Hugo and me was inevitable, only a matter of time. But I needed this time to process how it would happen, to get a better strategy than I currently had, which was either storm the palace gate or try to flee the city.
“We will go to Zol,” Lhandon said calmly, interpreting the confusion in my eyes. “I want you to take a seat, settle your thoughts, and regain control of your breath. I’m sure what you just experienced was heartbreaking. I can tell. And we can discuss it later.”
“Yes… I think I will do that,” I said as I took a seat. I started taking deep breaths, all the way to the back of my skull, doing my best to chill my nerves.
Lhandon slid open a door that I hadn’t noticed before, calling for one of the younger monks. A boy in saffron robes appeared almost instantly, a goofy smile on his face.
“Yes, Exalted One?”
“Find the lioness,” Lhandon told him. “We need her here now, within the next ten minutes.”
The boy nodded, bowed, and was gone.
Another monk passed and Lhandon called out to him, asking him to inform Sukhbat the Precious Heart Gem that we would be leaving shortly, and to ask him for the fastest way to leave the city in the direction of Zol.
The thin, teenage monk nodded and disappeared down one of the hallways.
“I have to get packed up,” Lhandon said as he began going through some of the notes he had taken. He took an orange leather brief from a bookshelf and started placing the notes inside.
“I have a bag as well,” I said, nodding to the bag with my robes and it.
“We will probably need a larger pack, but I’m sure they have something around here.”
The monk Lhandon had sent to communicate with Sukhbat returned carrying a sizable backpack with him. “The Precious Heart Gem would like an audience with you in fifteen minutes,” he said, “in the prayer room.”
“Thank you,” Lhandon said with a bow, the monk also returning his bow before disappearing again. “This will certainly help,” he said as he placed the leather brief in the backpack that had been given to us. Lhandon also stuffed his old robes in there, as well as a clean set of saffron robes. “You have a fresh set, too,” he said, nodding to the bookshelf where I found that a set had been folded and set out for me.
Now in control of my breath, I stood and stretched my arms over my head, nodding for a moment with my eyes closed. What was done was done. I needed to move on. I took my fresh set of robes from the shelf, and the robes that I had worn back in Lhasa, and placed them in the backpack.
The door slid open and as it did Saruul slipped into the room, a canvas bag of fruit in her hands. “I came as quickly as I could,” she said.
“You were about to get left behind,” Roger scolded her.
“What happened? Why do we have to leave?”
“Nick’s buddy gave him an ultimatum: fight or leave. Nick chose to leave the city, with the caveat that he would be given an hour to leave before he was hunted down like a dog.”
“And we aren’t staying and fighting?” she said, her ears flattening.
“Not yet,” I said, looking up to her. “I need time to think this through. We’re going to go to Zol to search for the reincarnation of the Exonerated One. We can also try to find the relic.”
“Relic?” asked Lhandon.
“The treasure map that Nyima the sand spirit gave us.”
“Ah, yes.”
“What can I do to help?” Saruul asked.
“Do you have anything to pack?” Roger asked her. “Aside from a bunch of fr
uit?”
“No…”
“Then there isn’t much you can do. We are supposed to meet the head monk in a few minutes. So I guess we just wait for that,” Roger said.
“Maybe we should go now,” I suggested. “I know he said fifteen minutes, but the sooner we leave, the better.”
Lhandon nodded. “Let me go first, just to make sure that he is ready to see us.”
“You could have taken him,” Roger said as soon as Lhandon stepped out. “He’s not such a tough guy. He didn’t even have a weapon. You have the ability to stop time and you’ve got your handy fire sword. What could he have done?”
“It just all came as such a shock to me,” I admitted. “I wasn’t ready for that. I should have been ready.”
“It has happened to the best of us,” Roger said as he rose into the air and landed on my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
Lhandon peeked his head back in. “The Precious Heart Gem will see us now.”
We made our way down the hallway to a room at the far end of the temple, the door already open. Sukhbat sat on a large pillow, his girthy legs folded beneath him, his two female consorts absent from the room.
There was a statue of a seated monk behind him, and it was only when we came into the room that I saw that the statue had been moved to the side, revealing a stairwell that led down.
“This isn’t the first time that someone from this monastery had to run from an Emperor,” he said with a chuckle. “Believe it or not, years ago, I had to run from the city as well. So I understand what you are going through.” Sukhbat looked to me with compassion in his eyes. “And I am glad to see that you made it here in one piece.”
“I did,” I told him, taking a seat, just as Lhandon had done. Saruul looked like she didn’t want to sit, but she did so anyway, Roger transferring from my shoulder to hers.
“I will make this brief as I know that time is of the essence. You have been given an hour, correct?”
“That’s right,” I told him.
“You will be fine,” he assured us with a grin that lifted his jowls. “There are two passageways in the tunnel that runs beneath this monastery. If you head into the passageway on the right, you will go toward the port. If you head to the left, you will go toward the city of Zol. It won’t take you all the way there, of course, but it will deposit you a few hours outside our city, where you will be much safer. From that point, just follow the Blue Path. Like the path through the jungle from Anand, the trees are marked. From there, it should take a day or so to reach Zol.”
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