Way of the Immortals

by Harmon Cooper

  “Is there anyone else you need to save? Anyone?”

  “No... I have nobody.”

  Two of the dogs came charging at me, but once they saw my flaming sword they backed up, too afraid to attack.

  “That’s right!” Roger screeched at the dogs, the bird flying higher in the air, still gripping his dagger.

  I waved my blade at the dogs again as Altan stepped out. The two canines barked and growled, moving back and forth.

  We started running toward the mountains, the dogs chasing after us.

  “We have to do something about them,” Roger said, “they’re going to bring attention to us!”

  “Who’s the bird?” Altan asked.

  “A friend,” I told him as an idea coming to me.

  I turned, locking my eyes onto one of the dogs.

  I punched the ground, sending a ripple toward the beast, knocking it onto its side. Once it got to its feet both the dogs ran off for good, their tails tucked between their legs.

  “They’re smarter than Madame Mabel’s guards,” Altan said, pointing at a pair of men running in my direction with long spears.

  “I don’t disagree with you there. We need to get to that area,” I told him quickly, nodding in the direction that I had escaped to nearly a month ago.

  “Your sword is attracting attention,” Roger reminded me. “Nick, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I told him. Everything was still a bit hazy, tendrils of darkness expanding before me. “I’ll take them out, and then I will sheathe it. Stay behind me, Altan,” I said as the men reached us.

  “You will not get far,” one of the men said, and I recognized him as the one who had taken Bobby prisoner. At least he looked like the leader of the small military patrol. Then again, his face could have belonged to anyone.

  I could barely make out the details now, just forms.

  “You get demoted or something?” I asked him.

  I barely managed to swat his spear out of the way, the wooden part of the man’s weapon igniting and forcing him to toss it aside. The other one tried the same thing and experienced comparable results.

  “I don’t want to do this, guys,” I told them, a little shaky now. “But here’s your chance: Run now, or play dead.”

  They looked at each other.

  One of them did as I instructed, getting on the ground, his hands over his head.

  The other charged me with a dagger he’d pulled from his boot.

  I brought my Flaming Thunderbolt deep into his chest, pulling up, its tip tearing out of the man’s back as his body ignited.

  “Stay down,” I told the other man, seeing double for a moment. “Stay down!”

  “I will make that easier.” Roger drove his dagger into the man’s calf and ripped it out again. The man cried out in pain and tried to crawl away.

  “Your bird attacks people?” Altan asked.

  “It’s a long story,” I told him, as I put my Flaming Thunderbolt away. “Let’s… let’s just hurry.” I stumbled and caught my balance. “We’ve got to get away from here.”

  We took off toward the mountains, leaving the fiery destruction behind us.

  Chapter Thirty-One: A New Path Opens

  Altan and I finally took a breather, at least that’s what I thought we were doing. In actuality, I had no idea what was going on. Reality had split before me, a blurry overtone to everything, melting candy stripes all along my peripheral.

  “Are you okay, Nick?” Altan’s voice echoed inside my skull.

  “I think he inhaled too much lotus,” Roger said, fluttering his wings, “when he was burning through that field.”

  “The bird keeps squawking and I have no idea what he’s saying. Talk to me, Nick, say something.”

  “We need to keep moving,” I said, or at least I thought I said those words. The words seemed three feet in front of me by the time I started to form them in my lips.

  But how?

  My next steps were labored; with each inhale I could feel the force of nature all around me, its mysteries, its anomalies, its…

  “Saruul,” I whispered.

  “Who’s that?” Roger asked.

  “Saruul? Who’s Saruul?” Altan shook me by the shoulders. “Nick, are you okay?”

  “Saruul,” I said again, projecting my words forward. “Saruul!”

  She wouldn’t come this far down the mountain, I was sure of it, but that didn’t stop me from saying her name again, hoping that the snow lioness would hear me and come to my aid.

  “Nick, let’s just walk,” Altan said, lifting his arm around me. “Which direction?”

  “Roger…”

  “Follow me,” Roger said, and even though Altan couldn’t understand the bird, he got the hint.

  We started walking, each step as if I were trudging through mud. I heard everything around me now, from a raccoon moving through the underbrush to the fire crackling in the valley below.

  “Saruul,” I whispered again.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Roger called down to me, his voice doing a circle around my head, “but we’re getting you to the monastery. The fat monk will know what to do.”

  “I’m trusting you, bird,” Altan said.

  “Trust Roger…” I nodded, trying to stop myself from falling.

  “Who’s Roger?”

  “Bird… Roger.”

  “Okay, I’ll trust Roger then. I’ve got you, Nick.”

  I nodded, my thoughts a barrage of stained imagery tainted by fire.

  I had a major enemy now; I should have thought my actions through. I should have known they would come after me, that they would hurt the people I cared about, but the lotus was making me smile, making me not care at all what had happened back there.

  The lotus…

  I couldn’t wipe the shit-eating grin off my face as a multi-winged dragon rose up over the trees, Altan pushing me to the ground, Roger going crazy.

  Except that didn’t happen.

  There was no dragon; I thought that the tree was a dragon, and it was I who threw myself to the ground.

  I was hallucinating…

  Or was I?

  I was on my feet again, Altan helping me along, the sounds of trumpets in the distance.

  Did I see the man that had attacked me so long ago, the ninja ghost that was shattered by the boar? Was there a spirit swirling around me, waiting for a riddle? Could it really be Fist of Force standing before me, ready to take back what was rightfully his?

  “Saruul.”

  Sona stepped out from behind a tree, her blade drawn, a betrayed look on her face.

  “You knew I would do it,” I mumbled to her. “I had to.”

  “I will kill you for this,” she said, bringing her blade to the ready, a pinkish energy pulsing in the air around her.

  “I will fight you in heaven or hell,” I growled, “wherever I go.”

  “The Underworld.”

  “Then I will follow after you to beat you again! Fuck off!”

  An apprehensive look came over her face. “I didn’t want for this to happen…”

  “I did what I had to do,” I told the warrior woman. “You knew it was coming. You must have sensed it at the dinner table.”

  “Nick, stay with me,” Altan said, his voice somewhere off to my left, my right. I felt something tapping against my cheek. “Stay with me, Nick.”

  “Sona is here…”

  “No she’s not, Nick, get it together!” Roger cried.

  I stood before the Sea of Lhasa, looking down at the dark waters, white hands reaching up toward me, a thunderstorm rolling in.

  I dove in, the white hands pulling me under, moving down my body.

  “Tom!” I screamed, and I swore I saw him swimming down there, his skin bleach white, his eyes black and sullen.

  My face was pushed under the water, my eyes open the whole time, claws starting to form on the white hands…

  “I thought the water would help,” Altan said, now behind me,
or in front of me. My face was wet.

  Somewhere.

  “Saruul.”

  “Just hang in there, Nick, it’ll pass,” Roger said above me, below me, within me, without me.

  Somewhere.

  “Sona…”

  “You will die for this, Nick. And I will kill you in the Underworld as well, banishing you for all eternity,” Sona hissed. “We could have served together, we could have…”

  The beautiful woman floated before me now, pink energy swirling around her free hand, her sword gripped tightly, the scarf covering her face unraveling, her skin exposed.

  We were lying on a cliff, Sona on top of me, her hands on my chest, her hair starting to turn colors, lion ears appearing.

  “Saruul…”

  Cue a fast blur of imagery, all convoluted nonsense.

  Broken streams, dreams, corpses, remorse.

  Divinity, a gasp awake, a heart beating in a person’s hand, a wolf devouring its young, a serpent rising out of the sea, runny ink on brittle parchment waiting to take a swim in the eternal fire pit.

  I was dragged, carried, kicking and screaming as the evil spirits closed in, boils popping from their necks, their jaws elongating, raindrops of blood.

  Suddenly, I stood before Bancroft Tower in Worcester again, a place I had visited countless times. I looked up to the top, the structure one of friendship, one built from one friend to honor another.

  The walls started to crumble, the bricks falling to the ground, the archway collapsing. A terrible roar rang out across the land, shattering the sky, the soil reaching up to me and pulling me toward it, dirt trailing over my face.

  I had to make it through this.

  I had to survive.

  “Let’s rest here…” someone said.

  “We have so much further to go…” came Roger’s voice.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying to me, bird…”

  “Saruul,” I whispered. “Hugo…”

  “He just keeps saying names,” Altan said, slapping my cheek. “Nick, you’ve got to snap out of it. Just focus on my finger. Can you see my finger.”

  I saw a candle.

  “Watch my finger,” he said.

  “A candle… The wind… Lotus.”

  “I can’t carry you much further. Here, have this.” Altan pressed my lips open, placing a bitter leaf in my mouth.

  I started to cough. Something beat against the top of my back.

  I spit it out, and with that spit came vomit.

  I sucked in a deep breath, reality a poisonous dart, everything still glazed over but clearer than it had been just moments ago.

  No Sona, no Saruul, no Tom, no Hugo.

  Goodbye, Bobby.

  I was in the woods, shadows looming over me, Altan patting my back, Roger hopping in front of me.

  “You can hear me now; I can tell something is different!” Altan said.

  “Altan?”

  “Nick! Good, you’re getting better. Can you walk on your own now?” He helped me to my feet. “We heard something. I carried you. But I can’t carry you any longer.”

  “Sword,” I said, putting my hand on the hilt of my blade.

  I felt his hand land on top of mine, the movement so fast that it instinctively caused me to try to unsheathe my weapon.

  “Relax, you don’t need your weapon right now, especially not a flaming sword. Here, have some water. I got some from the stream back there.”

  He brought a flask to my lips. I took a deep sip from it, the water cold, tasting of stone.

  “Thanks…” I said in his direction, everything fuzzy. “I can... walk. Hurry.”

  I gasped, my eyes coming open as I sat up. It was frigid out yet I was covered in sweat, breathing heavily. Altan was sleeping near me, his back against the tree.

  An image blurred into focus. Dema crouched before me.

  “You made it, Nick,” she said, placing a hand on my cheek.

  “Where am I?” I whispered.

  My thoughts started to come to me, everything that had happened since I lit the lotus on fire.

  “You did a brave thing back there,” she said.

  “I killed people,” I told her, still blinking my eyes, trying to focus on the beautiful woman. She was in gray robes, a part at the front revealing just a sliver of cleavage.

  “I believe in the end that the karma you have cultivated in eliminating Madame Mabel’s crop will even things out. You have not yet prevented a war, but you have postponed its start date.” A truly serene smile spread across her face. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Why can’t you intervene on the Middle Plane?” I asked her. “You are clearly powerful, why couldn’t you have helped us?”

  “I know it seems to you that I am a goddess, or a ‘guardian angel’ as you would put it, especially considering my abilities. But I’m not so strong here, and if anything my power comes by acting through a vessel.”

  “And I’m your vessel?”

  “You’re something else entirely, Nick, and one day, you will come to the Overworld, to paradise, and see how truly powerful I am. For now, all I can do is heal you,” she said, and energy radiated from her form over to me. “And I can tell you to continue your journey, to study the Way of the Immortals so you can truly unlock what lies inside you. Lhandon will help, but there will be other teachers as well. It is time that you start to find them.”

  “Do you know what happened to my friend?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid he’s been poisoned by a combination of lotus and nefarious magic. It may be a while before you’re able to do something that helps him. It may be too late. You have true enemies now, and they will come after you. If they kill you, I can’t guarantee your rebirth, not yet, not until…”

  “Until what?”

  She stood, her robes starting to twist around her feet. “Until we meet again, Nick.”

  “Wait…” I said, reaching my hand out.

  “Who are you talking to?” Roger asked. He landed in front of me, cocking his head to the right. “Are you feeling better now?”

  “I feel…” I nodded, looking to the place where Dema had just been crouched. “I feel surprisingly better.”

  “You were really gone back there. I was worried.”

  “How much further to the monastery?” I asked him, trying not to dwell on just how close I’d come to losing my mind.

  “Another hour or so. We really aren’t that far, and I tried to tell that to your friend, but he was too tired. Maybe…”

  I traced up Lha-Mo, my hands starting to glow as my Healing Hand came to me.

  I made my way over to Altan and placed my hand on his arm, his eyes fluttering open.

  “Nick? You are better?”

  “We aren’t far from the monastery. Just another hour.”

  He looked up at the dark trees for a moment, slowly starting to nod. “Yes, let’s hurry.”

  “And thank you for saving me back there,” I said as I started to heal myself as well, feeling a bit better, but still exhausted.

  Altan shook his head. “It was the least I could do.”

  We didn’t speak as Roger led us to the monastery, both of us tired, Roger also acting as our eye-in-the-sky just in case there was something trying to get us.

  My ability to see at night had improved, but it was still dark enough in some parts of the woods that I felt the urge to pull my Flaming Thunderbolt out just for light.

  But Roger led the way, calling out to us if we needed to watch our step, always there, always on top of things.

  We reached the steps of the monastery and I started to climb them.

  I moved faster now, excited to be in a familiar place.

  “They will find this place,” Altan said.

  “It will be a few days,” Roger told him. “The way I took you is straight through the woods, on an old path used by forest people that lived in these parts eons ago. To reach the monastery they’re going to have to go a long way around. I will be able to spot
them when they come.”

  “I don’t know if we will stay for long, but this is a good starting point for us. It’s a good place for you too,” I told the now former slave.

  “I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” Altan started to say. “I hope it wasn’t too hasty.”

  “It was incredibly hasty, but let’s just… Let’s just consider this your good karma. Without the things that you did for me, and the countless things you did for others, I wouldn’t be here.”

  We reached the main door just as an icy wind picked up.

  I instructed Roger to fly around, assuming that there was an open window somewhere where he could get in and get Lhandon’s attention. It took him a few minutes, but eventually, Lhandon came to the door, opening it for us.

  “Nick, and who are you? Pardon my manners. I am Lhandon.”

  “Lhandon, the Exalted One,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, my title.”

  “I have come to learn the Way of the Immortals, to better my practice, Exalted One,” Altan said, bowing his head. “I am currently a Broken Sword.”

  “As we all are,” Lhandon said, smoothing his hands over his robes. “You’ve come to the right place, Altan, but why do I have a feeling that there’s more to the story than Nick simply escorting you here?”

  “Yeah, you aren’t going to like where this goes…” I told Lhandon as he led us through the vestibule. He’d already cast a rune that allowed his fingers to glow, providing us some light. We stepped into the main prayer room, a cold, mystical draft hanging in the air. I also noticed the scent of burning incense wafting before me.

  “Let’s get to the kitchen first; I need to hear what it is you have done.”

  “We all need to get some rest,” Roger said, landing on my shoulder, yawning.

  “We can go into more detail in the morning,” I told Lhandon, “but basically, we ran here from Nagchu, and for most of that journey, if not all of it, I was hallucinating on lotus. If it weren’t for Altan here, and Roger, I wouldn’t have made it.”

  “Such good karma, and very humble of you to say that,” Lhandon said as he motioned us toward a table. “Just give me a moment to make some tea. And don’t worry, it is a soothing, bedtime tea.”

  He returned a few minutes later with a tray with three cups on it.