Hidden Monastery

by Gabrielle Wang

  A bolt of lightning like a golden serpent struck suddenly, close to Peng’s side.

  He turned swiftly, barely missing its bite.

  Another flashed to his left.

  Then another.

  The crash of thunder jolted the skies. Jax felt it reverberate inside him like a piece of struck metal. For a moment he wondered if he was strong enough for this. Then he pushed the thought away. There was no room for self-doubt, not while he was part of Peng. That would only lead to confusion. And they couldn’t go into battle like that. Now he understood why he had to undergo the temple training before he could meet Peng. He needed the strength of mind and body to withstand being carried along by a creature who had the power to bring Nature back into balance. And he needed the courage to face as powerful a foe as the one that lay ahead of them.

  As they approached the massive hurricane, wind and rain glanced off Peng’s face. Jax felt each drop like a knife nicking his own skin.

  Only by thinking as one can we overcome this thing, Mingzi.

  Jax knew instinctively what to do. We have to find the eye. That’s where it’s most vulnerable.

  Down below, the sea looked like shattered green glass as white waves criss-crossed each other in a boiling frenzy. The light began to change from grey to purple-black.

  Keep your mind focussed now, Mingzi. Peng flew straight into the eyewall of the hurricane.

  As Jax concentrated on shutting out everything else, he pushed Peng on in waves of thought. They were moving faster now and more freely. Peng’s mane surged and billowed as his legs cut into the eyewall in great striding motions.

  Jax could feel the wind trying to tear them apart, buffeting them this way and that, but he and Peng were strong, working as one.

  Suddenly, without warning, Jax felt a sickening sensation as if someone was dragging him down and choking him.

  Keep your mind focussed, Mingzi! Peng had felt it too.

  But their minds were separating.

  Then blackness rolled in.

  The fox spirit looked down at Jax’s body, lying within the magic circle, still warm with life but empty of spirit. He smiled as he stroked the gold necklace that gave him so much power – ten gold squares linked by fine chains, and in the middle of each square was engraved a mythical bird with a tiny emerald eye. It was the necklace that belonged to a Peng Master. And now it was his, part of his gold hoard, the source of his strength. He was one step closer to controlling the great beast, Peng.

  The fox spirit had now returned to the shape of the big rough boy. He bent down on his hands and knees and inspected the circle of herbs. Did I distract him enough? Just one small break and the protective circle is useless. Now, where is it? Ah, yes. The fox spirit smiled as he gently blew the herbal powder away. The magic was broken.

  Quickly lifting Jax by the feet, the fox spirit dragged the lifeless body into the water, but stopped at the sound of loud shouting.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ screamed Yu Yu as she came running towards the lake. Buzzy was close behind her, his dislocated arm now reset and almost as good as new.

  The fox spirit glared at them from the water. ‘You’re too late,’ he snarled, holding Jax’s head under. ‘Soon I will be the one to control the mighty Peng.’

  Yu Yu sprang like a wild tiger, hurling her body at the fox spirit. They both fell backwards into the water. She punched him down with one hand and reached over with the other, lifting Jax’s head to give him a chance to breathe. But the fox spirit was on top of her again. They struggled, arms and legs splashing, lashing out, whirling like two wild crocodiles.

  While Yu Yu was fighting the fox spirit, Buzzy quickly jumped into the water and dragged Jax to shore. Just as he was kneeling down to check his friend’s breathing, the fox spirit came flying onto the bank. Yu Yu waded out of the water after him. At that moment, the sequence of hand signs the Abbot had taught her to use against fox spirits came to her in a flash. She began performing them over and over again.

  The fox spirit staggered backwards, visibly weakened. But when he touched the gold necklace around his neck, his strength was renewed, and he rushed towards Jax’s body. Buzzy quickly stood up as the fox spirit approached and threw a punch, but the creature barely felt the blow.

  ‘Get away from him!’ Yu Yu yelled, drawing out her Flying Star.

  As Jax lay on the ground, his body began to slowly pulse with life. The ancient banyan tree was feeding him rich energy from deep within the earth. He felt his mind become alert once more.

  He opened his eyes and saw the fox spirit bending over him, his mother’s gold necklace hanging from the animal’s neck. Jax reached up and pulled down hard on the necklace. It broke at the clasp and fell into Jax’s hands. Immediately, he felt a surge of energy like a shock of electricity shoot through his body.

  The fox spirit staggered. No longer in possession of the gold necklace, and already weakened by Yu Yu’s hand signs, he fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

  Without Jax, Peng had found himself falling, tumbling over and over. The hurricane was too strong, tossing him about and lashing his body. But all of a sudden, he felt the Peng Master return with a jolt.

  Mingzi, focus your mind. Give me strength.

  Quickly, Jax gathered his thoughts and began concentrating on Peng. At once Peng’s legs grew stronger and his tail and silver mane rose and fell like a great billowing sail, deflecting the cutting rain and daggers of lightning. Soon they regained control and pushed forward, passing through the fierce eyewall into the eye of the storm.

  All of a sudden… silence surrounded them.

  Inside the eye, the temperature was warm and the air completely still. A solid wall of white cloud enclosed them, and up above, a circle of blue sky made it seem as though they were inside a gigantic well. It was hard to believe that this peaceful place of extreme beauty was the heart of a whirling tumultuous force that could destroy anything that lay in its path.

  Mingzi, we must grow and expand and fill it up. Then carry it away.

  Is that possible? How can we do that? But as soon as the thought appeared, Jax knew that it had no place inside the mind of a Peng Master. He pushed all doubt away. What do I need to do?

  Let go of yourself.

  Jax had tried practising this with the Abbot. But it was so difficult to let go completely. No matter how hard he tried, he was still aware that he was Jax, a person, an individual. He had to cease being Jax and completely lose himself inside Peng.

  Concentrate with me, Mingzi.

  Jax focussed his mind on Peng’s mind until he saw a single stream of light grow brighter and brighter then his own thoughts became like vapour. Gradually he was no longer Jax, or Mingzi, or a boy. He had given himself over to the great beast. He had become Peng, the mighty controller of Nature.

  Peng now felt complete at last. He looked up at the circle of blue sky above and breathed in the energy from the sun, the moon and the stars. And his body began to expand.

  As the hurricane spun in one direction, Peng flew in the other. They were like two wild beasts fighting to the death.

  Hurricanes are fed by warm air so Peng had to make it come with him, to take it up to the cold where its strength would be weakened.

  Peng was growing, filling up the eye of the hurricane. And as he picked up speed, he caught the wall with his scales, whipping up the white clouds, making them follow in his airstream. The sound was ferocious as the hurricane roared its anger.

  But Peng could now feel the hurricane weakening. He had made it spin in the opposite direction to slow it down. Now he wrapped the spinning mass around his body like a silken cocoon, and took it high up into the stratosphere. Then, when he was far above the earth, he shook himself violently. The dark energy split apart. Swirling cloud trails spun out in all directions. Like tendrils in a desert, reaching out for water that wasn’t there, they soon withered and died.

  All at once the world fell silent and still. Peng and the Peng Master had risen again.
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br />   Land of the Immortals

  The creature and the boy had won their very first battle. As they returned to earth, their two minds slowly began to separate.

  Down below, Jax could see the coastline and the rainforests, and beyond that, a mountain range stretching like a dinosaur’s backbone across the land.

  Still full of questions, Jax asked Peng, Where will you go now? Will you go back to your own world?

  You bind me to this world, Mingzi. I will live in the Land of the Immortals until we are needed again.

  The Land of the Immortals. Jax had heard many stories about this place, but he thought it only existed in fairytales. Will you take me there one day?

  Peng laughed. You have been living in it ever since you came to Whispering Cloud Monastery.

  Jax smiled as he thought back to the first time he had seen the monastery, rising out of a bed of mist.

  When will we see each other again? Jax asked.

  Unless we are needed sooner, I will come and visit you once every year. For your thirteenth birthday I will come as a moth with black and white eyes on my wings. But whatever form I take, you will always recognise me, for we are a part of each other now.

  Jax could now see the lake and the ancient banyan tree. As Peng neared the park, his body began to shrink – smaller and smaller – until anyone watching would have easily mistaken him for a leaf floating on the breeze or a small bird.

  Two frogmouth owls, sitting in the branches of the banyan tree, watched in awe as the great beast shrank to the size of a tiny beetle. He landed on the ground beside Jax’s body, and as he touched the Peng Master, Peng vanished to the Land of the Immortals.

  The Fox’s Den

  Jax opened his eyes to find Yu Yu cradling his head, a worried look on her face. He felt tired and worn out. Every muscle in his body ached as if he had physically flown into the eye of the hurricane himself. But he was glad to be back safely inside his body again.

  Yu Yu smiled with relief. ‘I… I… thought you were dead, Mingzi. You were barely breathing. I knew I shouldn’t have left you by yourself.’

  ‘Hey, man,’ said Buzzy, kneeling down beside him. ‘Glad to see you’re back in the land of the living.’

  They helped Jax to his feet. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m all right now. How’s your arm, Buzz?’

  ‘A bit sore, but I’ll live. Hey, man, you really missed an awesome sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. The hurricane looked as though it was going to hit us and these dark clouds came rolling in, making it look like night. Then suddenly, the wind reversed direction, just like that. It was unbelievable. And now look at it. So freakily quiet.’

  ‘Pity I was out of it,’ said Jax, glancing at Yu Yu with a small smile.

  She leant over and whispered, ‘You did all right for a ghost boy,’ and grinned.

  Buzzy cocked his head to one side, puzzled. ‘I swear you look different, man. You’ve grown or something. And hey! Where did you learn that amazing kung fu?’

  ‘The Abbot and the other monks in the monastery taught me,’ Jax replied.

  ‘No way! You couldn’t get that good in just a week!’

  A week! Jax’s mind reeled. He felt as if he had been at the monastery for three months at least. But how could he explain that to Buzzy? He decided to make a joke of it.

  ‘Guess I found something I like doing for a change,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Well it was awesome. You gotta teach me a few of those moves.’ Buzzy put his hand on Jax’s shoulder. ‘Now that you’re okay, I better go. My mum will be freaking out that I’m not home.’ He turned to Yu Yu, ‘Xie… xie. Is that how you say it, thank you?’

  Yu Yu smiled and nodded.

  ‘See ya, Jax.’

  ‘Yeah, see you at school, Buzz,’ Jax replied.

  As soon as Buzzy had left, Yu Yu turned to Jax excitedly. ‘What happened up there with Peng? One minute the hurricane was almost upon us, the next it was gone. How did you do it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it later. First we have to deal with that fox spirit. I remember pulling the necklace off him, but what happened after that?’

  ‘He tried to run away while I was putting the necklace over your head, but then he collapsed over there. I thought he was dead. I should have finished him off,’ Yu Yu said grimly.

  Jax inspected the dragging tracks, made by the fox spirit, clearly visible in the mud. They led off into the bushes. ‘Come on, Yu Yu, he’s still very weak. We have to reach his den and get the gold before he has time to renew his strength.’

  They followed the tracks through the park. In some places, dying sparks glowed in the undergrowth where the animal had set it on fire with his tail. Every now and then, Jax bent down to examine the ground.

  Soon he noticed that the fox spirit was no longer dragging his body, but walking on four legs. He’s getting stronger, Jax thought, drawing energy from his hoard of gold. We must be close to his den.

  As they followed the paw prints around a large boulder, Jax saw a bushy tail disappear down a hole in a hillock. ‘Quick, Yu Yu, teach me the hand signs! I’m going in after him.’

  Jax committed the sequence to memory. Then he told Yu Yu to wait outside and guard the entrance while he crawled into the hole.

  Using his night vision to help him avoid the network of tree roots that criss-crossed the tunnel, Jax worked himself deeper and deeper through the blackness. Clumps of earth fell into his eyes and mouth as he pushed himself on. Soon the pungent smell of the fox spirit filled the surrounding air.

  Finally, the tunnel opened out into a small cosy cave. Jax saw the fox’s bed, softened with feathers and fur. A few dry bones lay scattered about. And in the corner stood the creature glaring at Jax with yellow eyes, his head lowered and his lips curled into a snarl. Behind him sat a mound of gold – his hoard of watches, necklaces, bracelets, rings and pendants.

  ‘I have come to take back the gold you stole,’ Jax said firmly.

  The fox spirit stiffened and for the first time, Jax saw a flicker of fear and desperation in the animal’s eyes. Suddenly the creature turned and leapt into the pile of gold, rolling around in it, trying to absorb its energy through his skin.

  As he slowly regained some of his lost power, Jax saw him begin to shape-shift into Buzzy’s form again. But this time it didn’t work. Buzzy’s face still had a fox’s teeth and nose, and his limbs shifted back and forth from hairy to smooth, from fingers to paws.

  In desperation, the fox spirit then tried to get inside Jax’s mind – to weaken him like he had done back in the monastery with thoughts of how small and hopeless Jax was. But Jax was much stronger now. He threw the weakening thoughts right back at the creature, knocking him to the ground. As the fox spirit tried to get up, Jax raised his hands and began performing the nine hand signs Yu Yu had shown him. But he only had to perform the first one. Coming from a Peng Master, they held immense power.

  The animal collapsed, all evil energy drained from his body. The once mighty fox spirit was now just a frail old fox lying in the dirt of the cave.

  Jax spread his jacket on the floor and gathered as much gold as he could. He then dragged the bundle out of the den to where Yu Yu was waiting. ‘There’s more gold in there than I thought. No wonder he was so strong.’

  Yu Yu waved her hand in front of her nose. ‘You stink like a fox! Is it really you?’ she giggled.

  It took Jax two trips to collect the rest of the hoard. He tied the sleeves of his jacket together and was about to heave the load onto his back when Yu Yu said, ‘He doesn’t give up easily, though.’ She pointed to the fox spirit whose head had appeared at the entrance to the hole.

  ‘You’ve taken everything, I have nothing left,’ he whined. ‘Won’t you leave me something to survive on?’

  ‘There are always cockroaches,’ Yu Yu said with a laugh. She rummaged around in the pile of jewellery and threw the fox spirit a pair of false gold teeth. ‘There you go. That’s more your style.’

  The
animal grabbed them in his mouth and snarled weakly, then crept back inside his den.

  ‘That old fox spirit won’t be causing any more trouble,’ Yu Yu said. ‘What are we going to do with all this gold?’

  ‘We’ll take it back to the Abbot. He’ll know how to distribute it in the proper way.’ Jax swung the bundle over his shoulder and they headed back to Whispering Cloud Monastery.

  The Abbot greeted them warmly at the monastery gates. Lao Bing and Lao Tan emptied the gold jewellery into two large woven baskets. They smiled, happy to see Jax and Yu Yu back so soon.

  ‘There is great need for this gold you have brought,’ said the Abbot. ‘Many people have suffered in the storms of late. Now it can serve good instead of evil.’

  He turned to Yu Yu. ‘Watch over him well, child, you are a spirit watcher now.’

  ‘A spirit watcher?’ Yu Yu was puzzled. ‘What is that, Abbot?’

  ‘Every Peng Master must have someone to watch over him, otherwise the consequences can be fatal. That’s why I have been training you ever since you were brought to us.’

  ‘What do I need to do?’

  ‘Guard Mingzi’s body whenever he is with Peng. Advise him sometimes, and keep him focussed on his destiny. This last duty can often be the greatest challenge.’

  Yu Yu smiled proudly. ‘I will not fail you, Abbot.’

  ‘Now, it is getting late,’ the Abbot said. ‘You should both be on your way home.’

  The Abbot waved as he watched them leave. At last he could rest, content in the knowledge that this young boy was truly worthy of being called a Peng Master. And the girl by Mingzi’s side, his trusted spirit watcher, his link to the earth and his strength.

  Never before had such a young pair of Peng and Master overcome so extreme a storm. He knew that these two were destined to become one of the truly great teams, well matched to face the tremendous challenges that lay ahead.

  The old man looked out over the glistening day, bathed in sunshine, gathered up his patched robes and closed the gates of Whispering Cloud Monastery.