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 burnin
g 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.”
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