Divine Madness

by Harmon Cooper

  “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 l
ast 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.

  “I
t 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.