The Blue-Spangled Blue (The Path Book 1)

by David Bowles

  “A few of those assaulted by Sakra’s bleak nihilism discover the Path. They see their spark, burning impossibly bright and blue at the heart of the swirling black. Breaking their illusory selves, rebuilding bricolage replacements that lead to ensoulment, they follow a new flame, one that must be protected and nurtured. They may linger for years in the dusk, right on the edge of that precipice. But the Path is better than the abyss that looms on either side, orange streams of magma flowing ever-hungry in its depths.”

  That phrase. Ukwazi kyosu. Learned professor/s.

  Another search. Kyosu.

  His heart thudding in his chest.

  Impossible.

  “And here the transcriber must interject. Beloved, broken Kyosu, hear me across the years. The self is a delicate thing. Learn to build a fortress around it, Seer. Learn to fight the dark, as Domina once did. Learn to fight.”

  Hekima Umchawi had written those words more than six decades ago.

  But Brando knew they were meant for him.

  Learn to fight.

  Domina once did.

  A difficult book, Kiyik juya Shari. Though it ended victoriously—the blood spilled upon Jitsu’s sand freeing Domina at last to create her soul and escape Sakra’s grasp—the lost volume of the Oracle’s journals laid human depravity out in stark relief.

  Brando’s suffering paled in comparison.

  No hidden, paradoxical messages.

  Instead, a Way out of despair into triumph.

  Domina’s voice, surging from the page.

  “Ship’s library intact. These bastards never read. Me neither, truth be told. But Asiri does. Believing I’m an Oracle, they show me what the previous ones have written about revenge. I’m learning, oh, yes. Lao Tse helps me to empty myself, and to take heart in the fact that the weak can destroy the strong. The Bhagavad-Gita shows me how to remain resolute and disciplined, unchanged in defeat or success, calm in my vengeance, not prone to dark inertia or all-consuming fire.

  “But who am I, really? Bolormaa Munkhbat? Domina Ditis? No, that girl and that woman are gone. Broken. Most of the pieces of them discarded. Still, something remains. The Bardo Thodol discusses the gotra, that pearly blue drop that lies at the heart of a person. That’s the tenshi, the spark, priceless and enduring. I’ve seen my own. Am shaping a new identity that echoes its power and endurance, shard of Sopiya that it is. I remember my teacher, back on Titan. She made us trace our fingers along the nested diamonds of the Marummo, repeating the names of the four umbini and the colors that went with each:

  “Areteya-Notsu, green-red. Zowe-Rogosh, purple-yellow. Henosi-Akeratosh, white-black. And Sopiya-Sakra, once Ennoya-Bitosh before the Secession. Blue and orange. A cruel sun in a ever-arching sky.

  “Ubiquitous blue. Tibetan Buddhism connects that color with Akshobhya, one of the five archetypal mild Buddhas, responsible for the transmutation of delusion’s poison. The Grey Prison is Maya. The blue light of my tenshi effaces illusion.

  “Of every Oracle down the long millennia, however, none touches me the way Jelaluddin Rumi does.

  The sky is blue,

  and the world’s a blind child

  who toddles near the Path.

  But I who see your emptiness

  see beyond the blue and the blind.

  I am a realm where souls finally live.

  Stare into this deepening blue,

  while the stars whisper a secret to you.

  “But the lines that most move me, the words that spell out my purpose and destiny clearer than anything else I’ve ever come upon, describe opening the door through the turn, the feverish dervish of physical extremes, the mad rush that permits the union of human and divine. It’s like the wende.

  Dance when you’re broke open.

  Dance once you’ve torn the bandage off.

  Dance in the middle of battle.

  Dance though you’re smeared with blood.

  Dance as if you’re totally free.”

  Toward the end of the volume, the strands weave together:

  “I’ve found my Way at last. This morning, the oni came to me again, bringing more mohiyo leaves. The female that leads them—I can’t pronounce her name, so I just call her Sajan—gestured at me. ‘Come,’ she said. I was delighted she’s learned a few words. I told Asiri to stay with Arehanja. The rest of the oni band was gathered together near a mountain. They stank. Had smeared themselves with jagen shite. Shite. Shite. Scream. Shudder. Take handful, cackling. Once again. Own volition? Don’t know. Hard to hold on. Precarious. Old ways reassert. Can’t process. Filter. Need blue. Can’t.

  “Up mountain. Little hands on my waist, legs, pushing. Jagen senses movement. Eyes bad. Nostrils wide. Just shite. Nothing more. Encircling it. Two dozen, leaping. Hands on knobby spine, pulling it over, exposing belly.

  “Sajan beside me. Putting shard in my hand. Black. Volcanic. Sharp. Jagen’s legs scrabbling, swinging through air, deadly claws. Sajan runs forward. No! What? Stop!

  “Dancing. Oni is fucking dancing. Amid the flailing limbs she dances her way close. Soft underbelly. Twitching limb knocks her flat. Running forward. The blue of the sky. Everywhere around me. The blue of Sajan’s blood. She struggles to stand.

  “You won’t die today. Because Domina can dance. And she does. She twists and spins, somersaults and dives, pulling Sajan to her feet, slamming against the pliant belly of the beast. Together, the human woman and her alien friend will sink their blades into that flesh and rip it open. The viscera will spill forth, fetid and foul, bathing our erstwhile heroine in black viscera. Unhinged, knowing nothing but the need to destroy the monster before it slays her or her diminutive allies, Domina Ditis will plunge her arms into those squirming guts and cut the beast’s fucking heart out, screaming in triumph as the oni ululate wildly.

  “This is Ona ra-Oni. The Oni Way. It ends in the Wende ra-Kobomaga, the Killing Dance. And woe unto you, Uncle Zamilan. Because you’re next, motherfucker.”

  Brando had set the texts aside, his eyes full of tears. He had taken a square of the High Sacrament and gone wordlessly down into the ship’s hold, to the darkest and dampest corner.

  A fortress around the self. Learn to fight. Dance in the middle of battle. Cut the beast’s fucking heart out. The Oni Way.

  The voices had echoed louder and louder in the inky black of the hold until the reverberations had cracked open the world itself, and the blue light of his spark had floated before him, illuminating the glittering seams of his kintsukuroi soul.

  Brando D’Angelo, fully revealed.

  Satori.

  “Now,” his spark had whispered, “you can reforge that self and the body it inhabits.”

  Now, in the gaol cell, he recalled the hormones, the nanobots, the brutal twenty-hour days, training his body and mind, learning to use weapons he’d never imagined touching before, pushing his flesh to bend to the force of his will and determination.

  More than just a physical transmutation, Brando’s was a psychological sea change. When he had addressed himself to Santo and other members of the government, the men had noticed this startling metamorphosis. No more smiling, self-deprecating banter. He had been all business, forceful and blunt.

  That control helped him now. He was focused, ready. His head hanging limply, his breathing shallow, he appeared beaten, but that was just superficial. His moment would come, he knew. Someone would make a mistake. An opportunity would present itself.

  He would be ready.

  CHAPTER 43

  Ben Wu eased himself into a seat on the transport, breathing a sigh of relief that his disguise and fake documents had fooled the security personnel. Getting out of the cell back at headquarters hadn’t been too hard. Though he’d been stripped and searched, his queue had been left alone by the rookie squadmen in charge of him while more experienced officers handled the evacuation.

  Unfortunately for their futures in law enforcement, the thong that tied his hair off was actually a field disrupter coil that he’d take
n to wearing after his capture eight years ago. Once the novices had left him alone, it was a simple task to shut down the doorfield and slip out. A bit of sneaking around and theft had gotten him to an abandoned mine shaft where, not long after being compromised by the Brotherhood, he’d hidden all he needed to assume a new identity in the event that he ever got free of his Faustian agreement.

  The worst thing had been the loss of his queue, but he figured he hadn’t deserved the honor represented by that cultural badge for years. Slight adjustments to his skin color, nose, ears and lips created an overall effect that might trigger a sensation of recognition in casual acquaintances, but that kept them from pegging who he was. Ben was still careful, because anyone who’d spent a lot of time with him would see through the façade within minutes. Ben was no actor, and disguising his gestures, mannerisms and way of speaking was beyond his ability.

  His nervousness was heightened by the bizarre message he’d gotten from Nestor Bos. The com, which he’d accessed from a public terminal in Station City, had simply read K and me are here. Hang on for more instructions.

  He’d checked the transmit addie: Nawabari platform. Wondering whether Brando had discovered how close his enemies were, Ben had clicked off the terminal and taken a deep breath. Nestor had arrived, mere kilometers above him. The corrupter of his daughter. The man who’d wrenched what little honor Ben had had away from him. And there was nothing he could, or dared, do about it.

  An old off-worlder bent his knees painfully and lowered himself into the seat beside Ben. His tight gray curls and orange-brown eyes were very familiar: Ben soon recognized him as the president of the recently shut down Ra-Koreji, Modupe something or the other. Brando’s friend.

  The old man had tried to get a hold of the crazy ex-professor many times, but Ben had had to turn him away at Brando’s request. Modupe, a recent convert to Neo Gnosticism, had been living in Kinguyama, as far as Ben knew, which meant that Santo’s cultural cleansing had reached out into the farthest crevices of Jitsu’s social structure.

  Ben felt the old man’s eyes on him, but he continued to occupy himself with adjusting his seat and ceiling lighting. As the two of them had only spoken a few times, Ben hoped he wouldn’t be recognized. In a few moments the shuttle’s swain soon announced their departure, and the hum of the ancient engines masked the low voices of the other passengers.

  “Thank you.”

  Ben glanced at the old man. Modupe had obviously uttered the phrase, yet his eyes were glued ahead as if he were focused on the information scrolling across a display at the front of the cabin.

  “Excuse me?” Ben wanted to just ignore the man, but couldn’t. He’d been Brando’s best friend, and so had Ben. They were connected, and a warrior could not ignore those invisible threads of responsibility.

  “Don’t worry; I won’t reveal who you are. They’re looking for you, of course, Captain. It’s not your disguise that it gives you away: I studied you a lot when Brando joined the squads, and I got a sense of the kind of man that you are.”

  Ben nodded, looking ahead like the old professor. “Why did you thank me?”

  “For being his friend when I couldn’t. When he wouldn’t let me. For teaching him to be a better fighter.”

  “If you knew what I really am, you wouldn’t be so thankful.”

  “Oh, I’ve got no illusions about you, Captain. I understand, though, that you wanted to help him. For whatever reason, you couldn’t. Not the way he needed. I don’t think that there was a choice for you, though. At least, you imagined there wasn’t.”

  “Well, he’s got his chance now. I hope he’s a better man than me. I don’t think I could do it.”

  Modupe turned and looked at him with watery eyes that nonetheless bespoke an unusual strength. “No, maybe not. But maybe you can help him now, no? Maybe there are things you know that could alter the outcome.”

  Looking away, Ben stared at the infoscroll for the longest time, his guilt building. After a moment, his eyes focused on the words.

  A ship had just braked madly into the system.

  The station looming above the shuttle had been declared CPCCAF jurisdiction.

  Ben straightened. While the AF ship was probably suffering structural damage from the way it had defenestrated and braked, it was loaded with soldiers and weapons and a fighting chance. A chance to right some wrongs. A chance to rip Ya-Ting from those naffing bastards’ hands. For the first time in years, hope surged in Ben’s chest like a storm-swollen river.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can do something, Professor.”

  In silence he began to prepare himself for the task ahead.

  After the shuttle docked, Ben took his leave of Modupe and, exiting the directed flow of refugees, approached a CPCCAF soldier, who immediately pointed his rifle at Ben’s midsection.

  “Get back in line, sir.”

  “Listen,” said Ben, squinting at the man’s uniform, “Corporal Wehbe, my name is Captain Ben Wu, head of Jitsu’s Alpha Squad, former officer of the army branch of the AF, serial number AR5-9083-67BM. I got some real important info for your commanding officer that might affect the outcome of this little squabble.”

  “Hang on.” The lance corporal used his percom to report on the situation up the chain of command.

  Ben stood motionless for the three minutes it took for a reply to come. He felt confident he’d be allowed to see the captain, especially once they’d run his name through the system.

  “Okay, Captain Wu. Follow me.”

  Wehbe and another soldier led Ben though several levels of identically paneled halls and lifts to the command section of the station, where intelligence personnel were still setting up equipment, tapping into the station’s systems, and monitoring the com and shuttle traffic around Jitsu. Treading confidently around the room was an imposing man in a captain’s uniform. He paused from time to time to point out errors or to lend a hand, his low frequency voice sending rumbling tremors through the air and floor. His circuit soon brought him to where Wu stood flanked by the two soldiers, who saluted crisply upon the captain’s approach.

  “Ben Wu.” The captain regarded him intensely for a few seconds. “My brother-in-law headed a company in your battalion during the Neptune uprising. Krishna Farishta?”

  “Ah, yeah,” Ben chuckled, momentarily transported. “Krish Farish. True officer and friend. Nice to meet you, Captain.”

  “Same here. All right. Make it quick. I got a nutty bastard down on Jitsu who’s trying to demolish the CPCC consulate and take over Station City. Got to take care of him.”

  “You got a bigger problem than that, Captain.”

  Mukerji’s right eyebrow lifted high into the mottled mahogany expanse of his forehead.

  “For real? What, exactly, is that?”

  Here comes the test. “One thing.”

  “Ah, the man wants to barter.”

  Ben swallowed a sudden flash of anger. “My daughter is in a lot of trouble… her life’s in danger. I need yall to help me get her out. If what I tell you pans out and yall come out on top, I want you to help me.”

  The captain looked Ben squarely in the eyes, seeing the determination and despair within them. Krish had been right about this man: he was, at heart, an honorable warrior.

  “Of course, Captain Wu. That’s our job, anyway, isn’t it? Seeing to it that justice is done? Now, let’s hear what you’ve got for us.”

  Ben calmly released the breath he’d been holding.

  “Santo Koroma is working in secret with the Brotherhood to take over Jitsu. The massacres, all the posturing, the squads—it was all fabricated.” Conversation on the control deck hushed immediately. “Not only that. Konrau Beserra is about 500 kilometers away from us right now, on Nawabari Platform, with a contingent of Brotherhood soldiers.” Ben had done some thinking. “I imagine they got a ship or two hidden on the day side of the planet.”

  The captain’s eyes were wide, but apart from that, he showed no emotion.

  �
��Prove it.”

  “Give me access to a com terminal.”

  Mukerji motioned a shipman off of a stool and gestured at it. Ben rapidly encoded a message and beamed it at Nawabari Platform: contact me now urgent info about cpccaf.

  The wait was agonizing. If Nestor had decided Ben was too much a risk, he might not answer. Perhaps Brando could take the Brotherhood on by himself, but Ben wasn’t going to risk Ya-Ting’s life on that possibility. He’d already risked her enough.

  A real-time com chimed on. Ben motioned everyone out beyond the visual perimeter of his own end of the broadcast and answered.

  “Nestor.”

  “Make it quick, Wu.”

  “Brando…”

  “Already got him. You were right. The Neog bastard Santo is trying to shag our arse.”

  “More problems. CPCCAF…”

  “Yes, yes. They’re here. There, even. Where you’re transmitting from. You see anything?”

  “They’re concentrating on the planet. Don’t seem to know yall are in-system. Ship is damaged. Look, I need out. I need you to get me out.”

  Nestor smiled with nosferatu aplomb. “Sure thing, kwate. You just hang in there. When the Maliyas comes up over the curve in a few hours, we’ll take care of the CPCCAF, then I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry: you and Ya-Ting’re will have your teary-eyed reunion soon enough.”

  Ben nodded.

  “Nestor out.”

  A second of silence, then the intelligence operatives burst into activity. Mukerji had his people well trained: they immediately turned their attention to the Brotherhood-controlled platform while attempting to bounce a scan off of a more distant station to verify the position of the enemy ship.